Book 4: Melpomene

Chapter 1

1After the taking of Babylon came Darius' own expedition against the Scythians. For Asia was in flower with men, and great sums of money were flowing in; and Darius desired to punish the Scythians, because they had invaded the land of the Medes before him, defeated in battle those who withstood them, and so been the first to do the wrong.

2For the Scythians, as I have said before, ruled Upper Asia for twenty-eight years: pursuing the Cimmerians, they invaded Asia and brought the empire of the Medes to an end; for it was the Medes who ruled Asia before the Scythians came.

3And the Scythians, who had been away from home twenty-eight years and came back after so long a time, found awaiting them in their own country a struggle no less than the Median one: they found an army not small standing against them. For the Scythian women, their husbands being away so long a time, had been consorting with their slaves.

Chapter 2

1Now the Scythians blind all their slaves, because of the milk they drink, and they do it this way: taking bone tubes very like flutes, they push these into the private parts of the mares and blow with their mouths, some milking while others blow. They say they do this because, when the veins of the mare are swollen by the blowing, the udder is let down.

2When they have milked, they pour the milk into hollow wooden vessels, and station the blind men round the vessels and churn it; and what rises to the top they skim off and hold the more precious, while what settles below is of less account than the other. It is for this that the Scythians blind every captive they take. For they are not plowmen but nomads.

Chapter 3

1From these slaves and these women, then, a young generation had grown up among them; and when they learned the story of their own birth, they withstood the Scythians as they came down out of the land of the Medes.

2First they cut off their own country, digging a wide trench that ran from the Tauric mountains to the Maeetian lake, at the point where that lake is widest; and after that, when the Scythians tried to force their way in, they took their stand against them and fought.

3Battles came often, and the Scythians could gain no advantage in the fight; then one of them spoke as follows. "What are we doing, men of Scythia? Fighting our own slaves, we are killed and grow fewer, and if we kill them, we shall rule over fewer hereafter.

4"Now, then, this is my counsel: let us cast away spears and bows, and let each man take his horse's whip and go at them close. For so long as they saw us armed, they thought themselves our equals and born of our equals; but when they see us carrying whips instead of weapons, they will learn that they are our slaves, and owning it, they will not stand."

Chapter 4

1Hearing this, the Scythians did exactly so; and the slaves, panic-struck at what was done, forgot the battle and fled. Thus the Scythians ruled Asia, and, driven out again by the Medes, came home in this fashion to their own land. For this cause Darius, wishing to take his revenge, gathered an army and marched against them.

Chapter 5

1This is what the Scythians say: that they are the youngest of all nations, and that it came about thus. A man was born first in this land, which was then empty; his name was Targitaus. Of this Targitaus they say the parents were—what they say I do not believe, but they do say it—Zeus and the daughter of the river Borysthenes.

2Of such a birth, then, they say Targitaus was; and that he had three sons, Lipoxais, and Arpoxais, and Colaxais the youngest.

3While these were ruling, there fell from the sky upon the Scythian land golden things: a plow, and a yoke, and a battle-ax, and a bowl. The eldest was the first to see them, and drew near, wanting to take them; but the gold burned as he came.

4When he had drawn back, the second came near, and again the same thing befell him. The burning gold drove the two away; but when the third came near, the youngest, it went out, and he carried it home to his own house. And the elder brothers, acknowledging this, handed over the whole kingship to the youngest.

Chapter 6

1From Lipoxais, they say, descend those Scythians called the clan of the Auchatae; from the second brother, Arpoxais, those called the Catiari and the Traspians; and from the youngest of them, the king himself, those called the Paralatae.

2All together they bear the name Scoloti, from their king; the Greeks named them Scythians.

Chapter 7

1Thus the Scythians tell of their begetting; and they say the whole time since they came into being, from the first king Targitaus down to the crossing of Darius against them, is no more than a thousand years, but just so much. The kings guard this sacred gold with the greatest care, and with great sacrifices they make offering to it year by year.

2Whoever falls asleep in the open air at the festival with this sacred gold upon him, him the Scythians say never lives out the year; and for this reason they give him as much land as he can himself ride round on horseback in a single day. The land being great, Colaxais is said to have established three kingdoms for his sons, and to have made one the largest, the one in which the gold was kept.

3Of the country beyond, toward the north wind, they say that no one can go further than those who dwell at its edge, either to see or to pass through, because of the feathers strewn everywhere; for both the earth and the air are full of feathers, and it is these that shut off the sight.

Chapter 8

1This is what the Scythians say of themselves and of the country above them; this is what the Greeks who dwell on the Pontus say. Heracles, driving the cattle of Geryon, came to this land, which was then empty, the land the Scythians now inhabit.

2Geryon, they say, dwelt outside the Pontus, settled on the island the Greeks call Erytheia, by Gadeira, outside the Pillars of Heracles, upon the Ocean. Of the Ocean they say in story that, beginning at the sunrising, it flows round the whole earth; but they prove it by nothing done.

3From there, they say, Heracles came into the country now called Scythia; and a winter and a frost overtaking him, he wrapped himself in his lion-skin and fell asleep, and while he slept his mares, the ones grazing under his chariot, vanished by some divine chance.

Chapter 9

1When he woke he searched, and ranging over the whole country he came at last to the land called Hylaea; and there he found in a cave a creature of half-maiden kind, an Echidna, twofold in shape: above, from the buttocks up, a woman; below, a serpent.

2Seeing and marveling at her, he asked whether she had anywhere seen his mares gone astray. She said she had them herself, and would not give them up before he lay with her; and Heracles lay with her for that reward.

3She kept putting off the return of the mares, wanting to be with Heracles as long as might be, while he, having his mares back, wanted only to be gone; but at last she gave them up and said: "These mares, when they came here, I saved for you, and the saving you paid me for; for I have three sons by you.

4"When they are grown, tell me what I must do with them: whether I am to settle them here—for I hold the rule of this land myself—or send them away to you." So she asked; and they say he made answer:

5"When you see the boys grown to manhood, you cannot miss if you do this: whichever of them you see able to bend this bow just so, and to gird himself with this belt in this fashion, make him a dweller in this land; and whichever of them falls short of the tasks I command, send him out of the country. Do so, and you will have joy yourself, and you will have done what was laid upon you."

Chapter 10

1So he drew one of the two bows—for up to that time Heracles carried two—and, showing the belt in its turn, handed over bow and belt, which bore at the tip of its clasp a golden cup; and, giving it, he went his way. She, when the sons born to her were grown to manhood, first gave them their names: Agathyrsus the first-born, Gelonus the next, and Scythes the youngest; then, remembering the message, she did what was commanded.

2And two of her sons, Agathyrsus and Gelonus, proving unable to reach the prize set before them, were driven out of the land by the mother who bore them; but Scythes, the youngest, accomplishing the task, stayed in the country.

3From Scythes, son of Heracles, they say, came the line of kings that has ruled the Scythians ever after; and from the cup, the Scythians even to this day carry cups slung from their belts—the one device their mother devised for Scythes. This is what the Greeks who dwell on the Pontus tell.

Chapter 11

1There is another account also, told as follows, and the one to which I myself incline most: the Scythians, nomads dwelling in Asia, hard pressed in war by the Massagetae, went away, crossing the river Araxes into the Cimmerian land (for the land the Scythians now inhabit is said to have been, in ancient times, the land of the Cimmerians)—

2and the Cimmerians, when the Scythians were coming on, took counsel, because a great army was advancing, and their opinions fell into two parties, both resolute, though the kings' the better. For the counsel of the people was to go away, since it availed nothing to stay and hazard their lives, while the counsel of the kings was to fight for their land against the invaders.

3And neither side would yield: not the people to the kings, nor the kings to the people. The people held that they should depart and give up the land without a battle to the comers; but the kings thought it better to lie dead in their own land and not flee with the people, reckoning up what good things they had enjoyed, and what evils were to be looked for if they fled their fatherland.

4Having resolved on this, they divided, and, made equal in number, they fought one another. All who died at one another's hands the people of the Cimmerians buried by the river Tyras—their grave is still to be seen—and, having buried them so, they made their way out of the land; and the Scythians came on and found the land empty, and took it.

Chapter 12

1And to this day in Scythia there are Cimmerian walls, and Cimmerian ferry-places, and a country named Cimmeria, and a strait called the Cimmerian Bosporus:

2and it is plain that the Cimmerians, in their flight from the Scythians into Asia, founded the peninsula on which the Greek city of Sinope now stands; and plain too that the Scythians, pursuing them, invaded the land of the Medes, though they missed their road:

3for the Cimmerians kept always fleeing along the sea, and the Scythians pursued with the Caucasus on their right hand, until they came down into the land of the Medes, turned aside from their route into the inland country. That, then, is the other account, the one told in common by Greeks and foreigners.

Chapter 13

1Aristeas son of Caystrobius, a man of Proconnesus, said in the verses he composed that, with the light of Phoebus upon him, he came to the Issedones; that beyond the Issedones dwell the Arimaspians, men with one eye; beyond these the griffins that guard the gold; and beyond these the Hyperboreans, whose land reaches down to the sea.

2All these peoples, then, except the Hyperboreans—beginning with the Arimaspians—were forever falling upon the neighbors beside them: the Issedones were pushed out of their land by the Arimaspians, the Scythians by the Issedones, and the Cimmerians, dwelling by the southern sea, hard pressed by the Scythians, abandoned their country. Thus he too does not agree with the Scythians about this land.

Chapter 14

1Where Aristeas came from who said these things, I have said; and the story I heard about him in Proconnesus and Cyzicus I will now tell. They say that Aristeas, a man of birth inferior to none among the townsfolk, walked into a fuller's shop at Proconnesus and there died; and that the fuller, shutting up his workshop, went away to carry the news to the dead man's kin.

2And when word had already spread through the city that Aristeas was dead, a man of Cyzicus arrived from the city of Artace to dispute with the tellers, saying that he had met him on his way to Cyzicus and spoken with him; and while he held his argument with all vehemence, the dead man's kinsmen stood at the fuller's shop with what was fitting, ready to carry the body away—

3but when the building was opened, Aristeas was seen neither dead nor alive. In the seventh year after, they say, he appeared again at Proconnesus and composed those verses which the Greeks now call the Arimaspea; and after composing them he vanished a second time.

Chapter 15

1So much these two cities tell; but this I know befell the Metapontines of Italy two hundred and forty years after the second vanishing of Aristeas—as I found when I set the accounts of Proconnesus and Metapontum side by side.

2The Metapontines say that Aristeas appeared to them in their country and bade them set up an altar of Apollo, and beside it a statue bearing the name of Aristeas of Proconnesus; for that Apollo had come to their land alone among the peoples of Italy, and that he himself had followed the god—he, the Aristeas who now is—and that at the time he followed the god he was a crow.

3Having spoken, he vanished; and the Metapontines say they sent to Delphi to ask the god what the apparition of the man might be. The Pythia bade them obey the apparition, saying they would fare the better if they obeyed; and they, taking this to heart, did all these things to the full.

4And to this day the statue bearing the name of Aristeas stands beside the image of Apollo, with laurels standing round about it; and the image is set up in the marketplace. So much, then, about Aristeas.

Chapter 16

1Of the land about which this account set out to speak, no one knows for certain what lies beyond it; nor can I learn it from anyone claiming to know by having seen. For not even Aristeas, of whom I made mention just a little before—not even he said in those verses of his that he had gone further than the Issedones; he spoke of what lay beyond only by hearsay, saying that the Issedones were those who told him.

2But all that we were able to reach by hearsay, with exactness, and to the farthest point, shall be told.

Chapter 17

1From the trading place of the Borysthenites—for this lies midway of all the coast of Scythia—the first who dwell beyond are the Callippidae, Greeks of Scythian blood; beyond them is another people called the Alazones. These and the Callippidae in all else live as the Scythians live, but they both sow grain and eat it, and onions too, and garlic, and lentils, and millet.

2Above the Alazones dwell the Scythian tillers of soil, who sow grain not to eat but to sell. Beyond these dwell the Neuri; and north of the Neuri, so far as we know, the land is empty of men.

Chapter 18

1These are the peoples along the river Hypanis, west of the Borysthenes. But once across the Borysthenes from the sea, one comes first to the district called Hylaea, and going up beyond it one finds the Scythian farmers dwelling—the men the Greeks who live along the Hypanis call Borysthenites, though they themselves call themselves Olbiopolites.

2These Scythian farmers, then, hold land that runs three days' journey toward the east, down to the river whose name is Panticapes, and toward the north wind eleven days' voyage up the Borysthenes. Beyond them the empty country already stretches far.

3Beyond the emptiness dwell the Androphagi, a people by themselves and in no way Scythian. Beyond these the country is empty indeed, without any nation of men, so far as we know.

Chapter 19

1East of these Scythian farmers, across the river Panticapes, dwell the nomad Scythians, who sow nothing and plow nothing; and all this country is bare of trees, except Hylaea. These nomads hold a country reaching fourteen days' journey toward the east, extending to the river Gerrhos.

Chapter 20

1Beyond the Gerrhos are those lands called the Royal, and the Scythians who are the bravest and the most numerous, and who hold all the other Scythians to be their slaves. These reach southward to Taurica, and eastward to the trench dug by the descendants of the blind men, and to the trading place called Cremni on the Maeetian lake; and some of them come down as far as the river Tanais.

2North of the Royal Scythians dwell the Melanchlaeni, another people and no Scythian kind. Beyond the Melanchlaeni lie lakes and a country empty of men, so far as we know.

Chapter 21

1Once past the river Tanais the land is Scythian no more: the first of the districts belongs to the Sauromatae, who, beginning from the innermost recess of the Maeetian lake, hold a country of fifteen days' journey toward the north wind, all of it bare of trees both wild and cultivated; beyond these, holding the second district, dwell the Budini, whose whole country is grown thick with forest of every kind.

Chapter 22

1Beyond the Budini, toward the north, there lies first a desert of seven days' journey; and after this desert, in the country that bends away toward the southeast wind, dwell the Thyssagetae, a numerous nation living apart, who keep themselves by hunting.

2Contiguous with these, settled in the very same country, are those whose name is the Iyrcae; and these too live by hunting, in this manner: a man climbs a tree and lies in wait there, for the trees stand thick over the whole country; and each has a horse trained to lie down flat on its belly, that it may keep low, and a hound ready as well. When he sights the beast from the tree, he shoots it with an arrow, mounts his horse, and gives chase, and the dog holds it.

3Beyond these, in the country that bends toward the east, dwell other Scythians, men who broke away from the royal Scythians and so came to this place.

Chapter 23

1As far as the country of these Scythians, the whole land described is a level plain, deep in soil; beyond this it is stony and rough.

2When you have gone a long way through the rough country as well, there dwell at the foot of high mountains people who are said to be all bald, born bald from the womb, men and women alike, flat-nosed and heavy-bearded, speaking a language of their own, dressed in Scythian fashion, and living off the trees.

3The tree from which they live is called the pontic tree; in size it is largest at about the measure of a fig tree. It bears a fruit like a bean, and has a stone within it. When this ripens, they crush it in cloths, and from it there drains a juice thick and black; the name of what drains is aschy. This they lick, and mixing it with milk they drink it; and from its thick lees they press together cakes, and eat these.

4For they have not many sheep, since the pastures there are not good. Each man dwells under a single tree, covering it in winter with close-woven white felt, and in summer without the felt.

5No one of men wrongs these people; for they are said to be sacred, and they possess no weapon of war. And it is they who settle the disputes of those who dwell around them; and whoever in flight takes refuge with them is wronged by no one. Their name is the Argippaeans.

Chapter 24

1Up to these bald men, then, there is much plain knowledge of the country and of the nations this side of them; for some of the Scythians come to them, of whom it is not hard to learn from the Greeks as well, both those of the trading post of the Borysthenes and those of the other Pontic trading posts. The Scythians who come to them do their business through seven interpreters and seven languages.

Chapter 25

1So far, then, it is known; but what lies beyond the bald men no one can say with truth. High mountains, impassable, cut it off, and no one crosses them. These bald men say—and I do not believe them—that the mountains are inhabited by men with goats' feet, and that beyond these are other men who sleep six months at a time. This I do not accept at all,

2but the country east of the bald men is known for certain to be inhabited by the Issedones, while what lies beyond, toward the north wind, is known neither to the bald men nor to the Issedones—except whatever these themselves say when speaking.

Chapter 26

1The Issedones are said to use these customs: when a man's father dies, all his kinsmen bring sheep, and having sacrificed them and cut up the flesh, they cut up the dead father of him who receives them as well; and having mingled all the flesh together, they set out the feast.

2The head of the dead man they strip, cleanse, and plate with gold, and thereafter treat it as a sacred image, performing to it great yearly sacrifices. A son does this for his father, as the Greeks keep the feast of his birth. These people too are said to be otherwise just, and their women to hold equal authority with the men.

Chapter 27

1These too, then, are known; but beyond them, the Issedones are the ones who say that there are one-eyed men and griffins that keep watch over the gold. The Scythians took this from them and tell it, and from the Scythians we others have taken it up, and we call them in Scythian speech the Arimaspians: for the Scythians call one "arima," and an eye "spou."

Chapter 28

1This whole country described is of so hard a winter that for eight of the months the cold is past all bearing; in these you will make no mud by pouring water out upon it—you will make mud only by kindling a fire. The sea freezes, and all the Cimmerian Bosporus, and the Scythians settled within the trench make war over the ice and drive their wagons across it to the Sindi.

2So winter lasts through those eight months, and in the remaining four there is cold there too. This winter is set apart in its ways from all the winters that come in other places: in autumn it rains nothing worth the telling, while in summer, raining, it does not let up;

3thunder comes at other seasons, not then; in summer it is loud and constant. If thunder happens in winter, it is looked on with wonder as a portent. And so too, if an earthquake comes, in summer or in winter, in the land of Scythia it is counted a portent.

4Horses endure this winter and carry through it; mules and donkeys cannot endure it at all. But in other places, horses standing in the cold grow gangrenous, while donkeys and mules endure it.

Chapter 29

1It seems to me, too, that for these reasons the stump-horned breed of oxen grows no horns there; and Homer's verse in the Odyssey bears out my judgment, the verse that runs, "Libya, where lambs, as soon as they are born, are horned"—rightly said, for in hot countries the horns come quickly, while in hard cold the beasts either do not grow horns at all or, growing them, grow them with pain.

Chapter 30

1Here, then, these things come to pass through the cold. But I marvel (for from the beginning my account has been searching out additions to itself) that in the whole country of Elis mules cannot be born, though the country is neither cold nor has any other evident cause; and the Eleans themselves say that because of some curse mules are not born among them,

2but when the season comes for the mares to be covered, they drive them out to the neighboring lands, and then bring donkeys to them there in the land of their neighbors, until the mares conceive; after that they drive them home.

Chapter 31

1Concerning the feathers, of which the Scythians say the air is full, and because of which they can neither see farther into the continent nor make their way through it, this is my judgment: in the country beyond this land, toward the north, it always snows, less in summer than in winter, as is natural.

2So whoever has seen thick snow falling close at hand knows what I mean: snow is like feathers. And because of this winter, the parts of this continent toward the north are uninhabitable. I think, then, that the Scythians and their neighbors, likening the snow to feathers, speak as they do. This, then, is the farthest of all that is said.

Chapter 32

1Of the Hyperboreans, the Scythians say nothing, nor do any others of the peoples settled here—unless perhaps the Issedones. But as I judge, not even they say anything; for otherwise the Scythians would speak of them too, as they do of the one-eyed men. Yet of the Hyperboreans something has been said by Hesiod, and by Homer also in the Epigoni—if indeed Homer made those verses.

Chapter 33

1The Delians say a great deal more about them: they say that sacred offerings, bound in wheat straw, carried from the Hyperboreans, come to the Scythians; and that from the Scythians each neighboring people in turn receives them and carries them ever farther west, as far as the Adriatic,

2and from there, sent on toward the south, they are first received by the Dodonaeans of the Hellenes; from these they come down to the Malian Gulf and are ferried across to Euboea, city sending them on to city until Carystus; past this, Andros is left out: the Carystians are the ones who carry them to Tenos, and the Tenians to Delos.

3So, they say, the offerings come to Delos. But at the first the Hyperboreans sent two maidens carrying the offerings, whom the Delians name Hyperoche and Laodice; and together with them, for safety's sake, the Hyperboreans sent five men of their townsfolk as escorts, those who are now called the Perpherees and hold great honors in Delos.

4And when the Hyperboreans found that those sent out never came home again, they thought it a hard thing that they should be sending forever and never receiving back; so now they carry the offerings, bound in wheat straw, to their borders and lay them upon their neighbors, charging them to send them on from their own hands to another nation.

5And so, they say, these things, ever sent forward, come to Delos. I myself know that this service is rendered to these offerings: the Thracian and Paeonian women, when they sacrifice to Artemis the Queen, do not sacrifice without wheat straw, bearing the offerings in it.

Chapter 34

1And this I know they do. For these maidens from the Hyperboreans, who ended their lives in Delos, the Delian girls and boys cut their hair: the girls, before marriage, cut off a lock, and winding it about a spindle, lay it upon the tomb

2(the tomb is within, on the left hand as one enters the temple of Artemis, and an olive tree has grown up over it); and the Delian boys, winding some of their hair about a tender green shoot, lay it too upon the tomb.

Chapter 35

1These, then, hold this honor from the dwellers in Delos. These same people say that Arge and Opis, being maidens from the Hyperboreans, traveling by way of these same peoples, came to Delos yet earlier than Hyperoche and Laodice.

2These two, they say, came bringing to Eileithyia the tribute that had been laid upon them in place of the offering for swift birth; but Arge and Opis, they say, came with the gods themselves, and other honors were given them by the Delians:

3for the women gather, naming them in the hymn, calling their names in the song that Olen, a man of Lycia, made for them; and the islanders and the Ionians, learning it from them, sing of Opis and Arge, naming them and gathering them. (This Olen, after coming from Lycia, made also the other ancient hymns that are sung in Delos,)

4and when the thigh pieces are burned upon the altar, the ashes of them are cast upon the tomb of Opis and Arge, thrown over it. Their tomb is behind the temple of Artemis, turned toward the east, nearest to the Ceian dining hall.

Chapter 36

1So much, then, let this be said of the Hyperboreans. I do not tell the tale of Abaris, the man said to be a Hyperborean, how he carried his arrow about the whole earth, eating nothing. If there are any men beyond the north, there are others also beyond the south.

2I laugh when I see that many have already drawn maps of the world, and that not one has set it out with understanding: they draw Ocean flowing around the earth, which they make circular as if turned by a lathe, and they make Asia equal in size to Europe. In a few words I will make clear the size of each of them, and what shape each should have for drawing.

Chapter 37

1The Persians dwell stretching down to the southern sea, the sea called the Red; above them, toward the north wind, dwell the Medes, above the Medes the Saspires, and above the Saspires the Colchians, stretching down to the northern sea, into which the river Phasis empties. These four nations live from sea to sea.

Chapter 38

1From here, toward the west, two peninsulas stretch out from it into the sea, and these I will describe:

2on one side, the peninsula facing north, beginning at the Phasis, stretches seaward along the Pontus and the Hellespont as far as Sigeum in the Troad; on the side toward the south, the same peninsula, beginning at the Myriandic Gulf that lies toward Phoenicia, runs seaward as far as the headland of Triopium. Thirty nations of men dwell in this peninsula.

Chapter 39

1Such, then, is one of the two peninsulas; the other begins at the Persians and stretches to the Red Sea: the Persian land, and after it Assyria receiving from it, and after Assyria Arabia; and this one ends—though it ends only by agreement—at the Arabian Gulf, into which Darius led a canal from the Nile.

2From the Persians to Phoenicia the land is broad and vast; but from Phoenicia on, this peninsula runs along this sea, past Syrian Palestine and Egypt, and there it ends; in it there are only three nations.

Chapter 40

1These, then, are the lands of Asia toward the west from the Persians. But beyond the Persians and the Medes and the Saspires and the Colchians, toward the east and the rising sun, the Red Sea is its bound, and toward the north the Caspian Sea and the river Araxes, which flows toward the sunrise.

2Asia is inhabited as far as India; beyond that, toward the east, it is desert, and no one can say what it is like.

Chapter 41

1Such, then, and so great is Asia; and Libya is in the other peninsula, for after Egypt, Libya follows. By Egypt this peninsula is narrow: from this sea to the Red Sea there are one hundred thousand fathoms, and these would be one thousand stades; but beyond this narrow place, the peninsula called Libya is found to be very broad.

Chapter 42

1I wonder, then, at those who marked out and divided Libya and Asia and Europe: for the differences between them are not small; in length, Europe stretches alongside them both, and in breadth it does not seem to me even worth comparing.

2For Libya shows itself to be washed by water all around, except that part of it which borders on Asia—Necos king of the Egyptians, the first of those we know, having discovered this. He, when he stopped digging the canal that runs from the Nile to the Arabian Gulf, sent out Phoenician men in ships, charging them to sail back through the Pillars of Heracles and come even to the northern sea, and so return to Egypt.

3The Phoenicians, then, setting out from the Red Sea, sailed the southern sea; and whenever autumn came, they would put in to shore and sow the land, wherever in their sailing they happened to be about Libya, and wait for the harvest;

4and having reaped the grain they sailed on, so that, with two years gone by, in the third year they rounded the Pillars of Heracles and came to Egypt. And they said—for my part I do not believe it, though another may—that sailing around Libya they had the sun on their right.

Chapter 43

1So was Libya first known; after that, the Carthaginians are the ones who tell of it. Now Sataspes, son of Teaspes, an Achaemenid, did not sail around Libya, though he was sent for that very purpose; he feared the length of the voyage and the desolation of the land, turned back, and did not perform the task his mother laid upon him.

2For he had violated by force the virgin daughter of Zopyrus son of Megabyzus; and when he was about to be impaled for this cause by Xerxes the king, the mother of Sataspes, who was the sister of Darius, begged him off, saying that she would lay upon him a heavier penalty than that:

3namely, that he must sail around Libya, until, sailing about it, he came to the Arabian Gulf. Xerxes granted this; and Sataspes, coming to Egypt and taking there a ship and sailors, sailed toward the Pillars of Heracles;

4and sailing through, and rounding the headland of Libya whose name is Soloeis, he went southward; and having traversed much sea over many months, and seeing that the voyage ever wanted more, he turned about and sailed back to Egypt.

5From there he came to King Xerxes, and said that he had sailed along the coast of the farthest of men, small folk dressed in clothing of palm, who, whenever the ship put in, fled to the mountains, leaving their towns; and that his men, entering, did no wrong, but took from them food only.

6The cause he gave for not sailing altogether around Libya was this: that the ship could no longer make headway, but was held fast. Xerxes, not granting that he spoke the truth, and because he had not performed the task laid upon him, impaled him, exacting the penalty first decreed.

7This Sataspes had a eunuch, who ran away to Samos as soon as ever he learned that his master was dead, carrying great wealth; and a Samian man seized the riches. His name I know—but I deliberately forget it.

Chapter 44

1Most of Asia was brought to light by Darius, who, wishing to learn where the river Indus—which of all rivers is second in producing crocodiles—empties into the sea, sent men in ships, both others whom he trusted to tell him the truth and also Scylax, a man of Caryanda.

2Setting out from the city of Caspatyrus and the country of Pactyice, they sailed down the river toward the sunrise and the east to the sea, and sailing through the sea toward the west they arrived in the thirtieth month at that place from which the king of Egypt sent the Phoenicians whom I mentioned before to sail around Libya.

3After these men had made the circuit, Darius subdued the Indians and made use of this sea. Thus Asia too, in all but the parts toward the sunrise, has been discovered, showing itself like to Libya.

Chapter 45

1Europe, however, is known to no one: neither whether it is girt with sea toward the sunrise nor toward the north; but in length it is known to stretch alongside both Libya and Asia.

2Nor can I guess why, when it is one land, three names have been set upon it, taking their designations from women, and boundaries were assigned to it—the river Nile of Egypt and the river Phasis of Colchis (though some say the river Tanais of the Maeetian lake and the Cimmerian straits)—nor can I learn the names of those who drew the dividing lines, nor from whom they took the designations.

3Libya indeed is said by most of the Greeks to take its name from a woman of that country, and Asia from the wife of Prometheus. The Lydians, however, claim a share in the name, saying that Asia was called after Asies son of Cotys son of Manes, and not after Prometheus' Asia; from him too the tribe at Sardis is called Asias.

4But Europe, whether it is girt with sea, is known to no one at all, nor from where it got this name, nor who the man was that named it appears—unless we are to say that the land took its name from Europa of Tyre; before that, it seems, it was nameless like the rest.

5This woman at least is plainly of Asia, and she never reached the land which the Greeks now call Europe, but only the coast from Phoenicia to Crete, and from Crete to Lycia. So much then for these matters; for we shall make use of the accounts generally received.

Chapter 46

1The Euxine Pontus, on which Darius was making war, has the most ignorant peoples of any land, apart from the Scythian nation. For we can name no nation within the Pontus as remarkable for wisdom, nor do we know of any man of learning arisen there, except among the Scythian nation—and Anacharsis.

2Of the Scythian race one thing, and that the greatest of human achievements, has been devised with the utmost wisdom of all that we know; the rest I do not admire. So well have they ordered this greatest matter that no one who attacks them can escape, and if they do not wish to be found it is impossible to overtake them.

3For a people who have built no cities and no forts, but are all house-carriers and mounted archers, living not from the plow but from their cattle, with their dwellings on wagons—how could such men not be invincible and impossible to engage?

Chapter 47

1They have contrived this because the land suits their purpose and the rivers are their allies. The land is flat and grassy and well watered, and rivers flow through it, not many fewer in number than the canals of Egypt.

2Those of them that are notable and navigable from the sea I will name: the Ister first, with five mouths, then the Tyras and the Hypanis and the Borysthenes and the Panticapes and the Hypakyris and the Gerrhos and the Tanais. They flow as follows.

Chapter 48

1The Ister, being the greatest of all the rivers that we know, flows with a volume always the same, in summer and in winter alike; and being the first of the rivers of Scythia that flows from the west, it has become the greatest for this reason—other rivers too emptying into it,

2these being the ones that make it great: five flowing through the Scythian country, the river that the Scythians call Porata and the Greeks Pyretus, and another, the Tiarantus, and the Ararus and the Naparis and the Ordessus.

3The first of these rivers named is large and, flowing from the east, shares its water with the Ister; the second named, the Tiarantus, lies farther to the west and is smaller; the Ararus and the Naparis and the Ordessus, flowing between these, empty into the Ister.

Chapter 49

1These native Scythian rivers swell the Ister; and from the Agathyrsi the river Maris flows and mingles with the Ister; and from the peaks of the Haemus three other great rivers flowing north empty into it, the Atlas and the Auras and the Tibisis. Flowing through Thrace and the Thracian Crobyzi, the Athrys and the Noes and the Artanes empty into the Ister; and from the Paeonians and the mountain Rhodope the river Cius, cleaving the Haemus in the middle, empties into it.

2Flowing from the Illyrians toward the north the river Angrus empties into the Triballian plain and into the river Brongus, and the Brongus empties into the Ister; thus the Ister receives both of them, great as they are. And from the country above the Ombrici the river Carpis and another river Alpis, these too flowing northward, empty into it;

3for the Ister flows through the whole of Europe, beginning among the Celts, who are the furthest of Europe's peoples toward the setting sun, next after the Cynetes; and flowing through all Europe it empties out at the flank of Scythia.

Chapter 50

1Since then these and many other rivers contribute their water, the Ister becomes the greatest of rivers; for if one compared water with water alone, the Nile would prevail in volume. Into the Nile neither river nor spring flows that adds anything to its volume.

2The Ister always flows with the same volume in summer and in winter for some such reason as this, in my opinion: in winter it is at its natural size and grows only a little larger; for this land is rained upon very little in winter, and has snow everywhere;

3while in summer the snow that fell in winter, which lies deep, melts and flows into the Ister from every side. This snow flowing into it swells the river, and so do many violent rainstorms with it; for it rains in the summer.

4By as much as the sun draws more water up to itself in summer than in winter, by so much the streams that join the Ister are greater in summer than in winter; and when these are set against each other, they balance, so that the river always appears to be the same.

Chapter 51

1One of the rivers of the Scythians then is the Ister; next after it is the Tyras, which rises in the north and begins to flow from a great lake that is the boundary between the Scythian and the Neurian land. At its mouth are settled Greeks who are called Tiritae.

Chapter 52

1The third is the river Hypanis, which rises in Scythian country and flows from a great lake around which graze white wild horses; and this lake is rightly called the Mother of the Hypanis.

2Rising from this lake, the river Hypanis flows for five days' voyage a small and sweet stream, but from that point to the sea for four days' voyage it is terribly bitter;

3for a bitter spring flows into it, so very bitter that, small as it is, it spoils the Hypanis, which is one of the few great rivers. This spring is on the borders of the land of the plowman Scythians and the Alazones; and the name both of the spring and of the place where it rises is in the Scythian tongue Exam-paeus, and in the Greek language Sacred Ways.

4The Tyras and the Hypanis draw close together at their upper ends in the land of the Alazones, but from that point each turns away and flows on, widening the space between them.

Chapter 53

1The fourth is the river Borysthenes, which is the greatest of these after the Ister and, by my judgment, the most useful—not only of the Scythian rivers but of all others as well, except the Nile of Egypt; for no other river can be compared with that one.

2Of the rest the Borysthenes is the most useful, providing the finest and best-kept pastures for cattle, fish of the best quality and in the greatest abundance, and water that is sweetest to drink; it flows clear beside muddy streams, the sowing of seed beside it yields the best crop, and where the land is unsown the grass grows deepest;

3and at its mouth salt forms of itself in boundless quantities; and it furnishes great boneless fish for salting, which they call antacaei, and many other things worth wondering at.

4Up to the region of the Gerri, which is a voyage of forty days, it is known to flow from the north; but above that, no one can tell through the lands of what peoples it flows; it appears to flow through desert until it reaches the country of the farming Scythians; for these Scythians dwell along it for a voyage of ten days.

5Of this river alone and of the Nile I cannot tell the springs, and I think no other Greek can either. Flowing near the sea the Borysthenes is joined by the Hypanis, which empties into the same marsh.

6The land between these rivers, which juts out like a headland, is called the Headland of Hippoleon, and on it a temple of Demeter is founded; and opposite the temple, on the Hypanis, the Borysthenites are settled.

Chapter 54

1Such then is the account of the country watered by these rivers; next after them is a fifth river, whose name is the Panticapes; it too flows from the north and from a lake, and the land between it and the Borysthenes is occupied by the farming Scythians; it empties into the Hylaea, and passing by this it mingles with the Borysthenes.

Chapter 55

1The sixth is the river Hypakyris, which rises from a lake and, flowing through the middle of the nomad Scythians, empties out beside the city of Carcinitis, leaving on its right the Hylaea and the so-called Racecourse of Achilles.

Chapter 56

1The seventh is the river Gerrhos, which branches off from the Borysthenes at the point up to which the Borysthenes is known; it branches off from it at this place, and it bears the same name as the place itself, Gerrhos; flowing to the sea it marks the boundary between the land of the nomads and that of the royal Scythians, and it empties into the Hypakyris.

Chapter 57

1The eighth is the river Tanais, which has its source above in a great lake, and empties into another and greater lake called the Maeetian, which is the boundary between the royal Scythians and the Sauromatae. Into this Tanais flows another river whose name is the Hyrgis.

Chapter 58

1In the matter of the notable rivers the Scythians are thus well provided for; and as for their cattle, the grass that grows in Scythia produces more bile than any other grass we know; and one can judge that this is so by opening up the cattle.

Chapter 59

1The greatest matters then are thus made easy for them; their remaining customs are ordered as follows. These are the gods whom alone they worship: Hestia most of all, then Zeus and Earth, holding Earth to be the wife of Zeus; after these, Apollo and Heavenly Aphrodite and Heracles and Ares. These all the Scythians acknowledge, and the so-called royal Scythians sacrifice also to Poseidon.

2In the Scythian tongue their names are these: Hestia is Tabiti; Zeus, most rightly named in my judgment, is Papaeus; Earth is Api; Apollo, Goetosyrus; Heavenly Aphrodite, Argimpasa; Poseidon, Thagimasadas. Images and altars and temples they do not make, except for Ares; him they do so honor.

Chapter 60

1The same sacrifice is established for all alike at every shrine, performed as follows: the victim itself stands with its forefeet fettered, and the sacrificer, standing behind the beast, pulls the end of the cord and so throws it down;

2and as the victim falls he calls upon the god to whom he is sacrificing, and then casts a noose about its neck, slips in a stick and twists it, and so strangles the beast, without kindling any fire, without performing any first rites, without pouring any libation. When he has strangled and flayed it, he turns to boiling the meat.

Chapter 61

1Since the Scythian land is dreadfully bare of wood, they have devised this way of boiling the meat: when they have flayed the victims, they strip the flesh from the bones, and then they throw it in—if they happen to have them—into cauldrons of their country, very much like the Lesbian mixing-bowls except that they are far larger; throwing the meat into these they boil it, kindling the bones of the victims beneath. But if they have no cauldron at hand, they throw all the meat into the bellies of the victims, add water, and kindle the bones beneath;

2and the bones burn splendidly, while the bellies hold the meat stripped of the bones with ease; and so the ox boils itself, and each of the other victims boils itself. When the meat is boiled, the sacrificer takes the first offering from the meat and the entrails and throws it down before him. They sacrifice the other beasts too, and above all horses.

Chapter 62

1To the other gods, then, they sacrifice in this way and these kinds of cattle; but to Ares as follows. In each district of the provinces a shrine of Ares is established for them, of this sort: bundles of firewood are heaped together to a length of about three stades and as much in breadth, but less in height; and on top of this a square platform has been made, of which three sides are sheer, while by the fourth one can climb up.

2Every year they pile on a hundred and fifty wagonloads of firewood; for it keeps sinking under the winter storms. Upon this mound there stands for each people an old iron sword, and this is the image of Ares. To this sword they bring yearly sacrifices of sheep and horses, and indeed they sacrifice more of these than to the other gods;

3and of as many enemies as they take alive, they sacrifice one man in every hundred, not in the same way as they sacrifice the sheep, but in a different fashion. For when they have poured wine over their heads, they cut the men's throats over a vessel, and then carry it up onto the top of the pile of firewood and pour the blood upon the sword.

4Up above, then, they carry this; but below, beside the shrine, they do as follows: cutting off the right shoulders, with the hands, of all the slaughtered men, they throw them into the air, and then, when they have finished the rest of the rites, they depart. The hand lies wherever it falls, and the corpse lies apart.

Chapter 63

1These, then, are the sacrifices established among them. Swine they use for nothing at all, nor will they even keep them in their country.

Chapter 64

1Their customs in matters of war are as follows: when a Scythian has brought down his first man, he drinks some of the man's blood; and all those whom he kills in the battle he carries their heads to the king. For if he brings a head, he has a share of the plunder that they take; if he brings none, he has no share.

2He flays the head in this way: cutting a circle around the ears and taking hold of the head he shakes it out; then he scrapes it and works it soft with an ox's rib in his hands, and when he has kneaded it he keeps it as a hand-towel; and from the bridle of the horse that he himself drives he hangs it and takes great pride in it; for whoever has the most of these skin towels is judged the bravest man.

3Many of them make cloaks too out of these hides, sewing them together like goatskin coats. Many again strip the right hands from the corpses of their enemies, hide and all with the nails, and make coverings for their quivers. For the skin of a man is thick and glossy, indeed almost the glossiest of all skins in whiteness.

4Many too strip whole men, stretch them on frames, and carry them about on horseback.

Chapter 65

1These, then, are their customs in these matters; but the heads themselves—not of all, but of those they hate most—they treat as follows: each man saws off the skull and cleans out everything below the eyebrows; and if he is poor, he stretches only an ox-hide around the outside and so uses it; but if he is rich, he stretches the ox-hide around it and lines the inside with gold, and so uses it as a drinking-cup.

2They do this with the heads of their own kinsmen as well, when they quarrel and he gets the better of them before the king; and when guests come to him whom he holds in regard, he brings out these heads and tells how these were his own kinsmen who made war on him and how he himself prevailed over them; and this they count an act of valor.

Chapter 66

1Once in each year every nomarch mixes a bowl of wine in his own district, and from it drink those of the Scythians who have slain men in war. Those who have not accomplished this do not taste this wine, but sit dishonored; and this is counted the greatest disgrace of all. Those of them who have slain very many men drink with two cups at once.

Chapter 67

1The Scythians have many diviners, who divine with many willow wands in this way: when they bring great bundles of wands, they set them on the ground and unroll them, and laying out each wand one by one they prophesy; and as they speak they roll the wands up again and put them back together one by one.

2This then is their ancestral divination. But the Enarees, the men-women, say that Aphrodite gave them the art of divination; and they divine with the bark of the lime tree: splitting the lime bark into three strands, they plait and unravel it with their fingers, and so give their answers.

Chapter 68

1When the king of the Scythians falls ill, he sends for the three diviners of the highest repute, who divine in the way I have described; and these men for the most part say that such and such a man has sworn falsely by the royal hearths, naming whichever citizen it is that they name.

2For it is the Scythian custom above all to swear by the royal hearths whenever they wish to swear the greatest oath. Straightway the man whom they declare to have perjured himself is seized and brought in; and when he is brought, the diviners accuse him, saying that by their art he is shown to have sworn falsely by the royal hearths, and that this is why the king is ill; but he denies it, saying that he has not perjured himself, and protests loudly.

3While he denies it, the king sends for twice as many diviners; and if these too, looking into their art, convict him of perjury, they straightway cut off the man's head, and the first diviners divide his property among themselves;

4but if the diviners who were called in acquit him, other diviners come, and yet others. If then the greater number acquit the man, it is decreed that the first diviners themselves be put to death.

Chapter 69

1They put them to death in this way: when they have filled a wagon with firewood and yoked oxen to it, they fetter the diviners and bind their hands behind them and gag them, and shut them in among the firewood. Then they set it alight and startle the oxen and let them go.

2Many oxen are burned along with the diviners, and many escape badly scorched, once their pole has burned through. They burn the diviners in the way described for other reasons as well, calling them false prophets.

3Those whom the king puts to death, he does not leave even their children alive, but kills all the males; the females he does not harm.

Chapter 70

1The Scythians make their oaths in this way with those with whom they make them: pouring wine into a large earthen cup, they mingle with it the blood of the parties to the oath, striking with an awl or cutting a little with a knife the skin of the body, and then they dip into the cup an acinaces and arrows and a sagaris and a javelin; and when they have done this they utter many prayers, and then they drink, both the parties to the oath themselves and the most honored of their followers.

Chapter 71

1The tombs of the kings are in the land of the Gerri, as far as the Borysthenes is navigable. There, when a king dies, they dig a great square pit in the earth; and when this is made ready, they take up the corpse, the body waxed and the belly slit open and cleansed, filled with chopped cyperus and incense and celery seed and anise, and sewn up again; and they carry it in a wagon to another nation.

2Those who receive the corpse when it is brought do what the royal Scythians do: they cut off an ear, clip their hair, gash their arms, tear their forehead and nose, and thrust arrows through their left hand.

3From there they carry the body of the king in the wagon to another of the nations they rule, and those who have received it before follow along. When they have carried the corpse around to all of them, they come to the Gerri, who live furthest away of all the nations they rule, and there is the place of burial.

4And then, when they have laid the corpse in the tomb upon a bed, they plant spears on either side of the body and stretch beams of wood over it, and roof it over with mats; and in the remaining space of the tomb they strangle and bury one of the king's concubines, and his cupbearer and cook and groom and attendant and messenger, and horses, and first fruits of all other things, and golden cups; and silver and bronze they do not use at all.

5When they have done this, they all heap up a great mound, competing with one another and striving to make it as large as possible.

Chapter 72

1When the year has come round again, they do as follows: taking the most suitable of the remaining servants—and these are native Scythians, for they serve those whom the king himself commands, and they have no purchased servants—

2of these attendants they strangle fifty, and fifty of the best horses; then taking out their bellies and cleaning them they fill them with chaff and sew them up.

3Setting half of an arch on two pieces of wood laid flat, and the other half of the arch on another two, and driving in many of these after this fashion, they then run thick timbers lengthwise through the horses, up to the necks, and mount them upon the arches;

4the front arches support the shoulders of the horses, while those behind take the weight of the belly by the thighs, and both legs hang free in the air. Putting bridles and bits on the horses, they stretch the reins out in front of them and then tie them to pegs.

5Of the fifty young men who have been strangled they mount each one upon a horse, mounting them in this way: they drive a straight stake up along the spine of each corpse, as far as the neck; and what projects below from this stake they fix into a socket of the other timber that runs through the horse. Setting such riders in a circle around the tomb, they ride away.

Chapter 73

1Such is the burial of the kings. But when other Scythians die, their nearest kin carry them about to their friends, lying in wagons; and each of those who receive them feasts the followers, and sets before the dead man as much of everything as he sets before the rest. For forty days private persons are so carried about, and then they are buried.

2After the burial the Scythians purify themselves in this way: they scrape their heads and wash them, and do as follows about their bodies: when they have set up three poles leaning against one another, they stretch fleeces of wool around them, and closing it in as tightly as they can they throw red-hot stones into a trough set in the middle of the poles and the fleeces.

Chapter 74

1There grows in their country a plant called cannabis, which is very like flax except in thickness and size; in these respects the cannabis far surpasses it. It grows both of itself and where it is sown; and from it the Thracians even make garments very like those of linen—indeed, unless one were well practiced in it, one could not tell whether the garment is of flax or of cannabis; and a man who has never seen the cannabis plant would think the garment is of linen.

Chapter 75

1When the Scythians take the seed of this cannabis, they creep in under the fleeces, and then throw the seed upon the red-hot stones; and it smolders and gives off a vapor such as no Greek vapor-bath could exceed.

2The Scythians howl with delight in the vapor-bath. This serves them in place of a bath; for they never wash their bodies with water at all.

3Their women pour water on and rub against a rough stone the wood of cypress and cedar and frankincense, and then they plaster this thick paste all over their body and face; and a pleasant smell stays with them from it, and when on the next day they take off the plaster, they come out clean and shining.

Chapter 76

1These people too shrink from adopting foreign customs—those of any other people at all, and least of all the Greek—as both Anacharsis and, after him, Scyles showed.

2Anacharsis, after traveling over much country and giving proof of great wisdom in it, was on his way back to the land of the Scythians; and sailing through the Hellespont he put in at Cyzicus.

3And finding the Cyzicenes celebrating a very magnificent festival to the Mother of the Gods, Anacharsis vowed to the Mother that, if he should return safe and sound to his own land, he would sacrifice to her in the same way as he saw the Cyzicenes doing at the appointed season, and would keep an all-night vigil.

4When he came to Scythia he went down into the place called the Hylaea (which lies by the Racecourse of Achilles and is full of all kinds of trees); going down into this place Anacharsis performed the whole festival for the goddess, holding a drum and wearing the sacred images hung about him.

5And one of the Scythians, seeing what he was doing, reported it to the king Saulius; and the king himself came, and when he saw Anacharsis doing these things he shot him with an arrow and killed him. And to this day, if anyone asks about Anacharsis, the Scythians say that they know nothing of him, because he traveled abroad to Greece and adopted foreign customs.

6But as I heard from Tymnes, the steward of Ariapeithes, he was the uncle of Idanthyrsus, king of the Scythians, being the son of Gnurus son of Spargapeithes. If then Anacharsis was of this family, be assured that he died at the hands of his own brother; for Idanthyrsus was the son of Saulius, and it was Saulius who killed Anacharsis.

Chapter 77

1Yet I have heard another account, told by the Peloponnesians: that Anacharsis was sent by the king of the Scythians and became a student of Greece, and that on his return he told the man who sent him that all the Greeks were busy with every kind of wisdom except the Lacedaemonians; and that these alone had the good sense to give and receive an account with sound judgment.

2But this story has been altogether invented by the Greeks themselves; the man, however, met his end as I described before.

Chapter 78

1Such then was Anacharsis' end, because of foreign customs and Greek company. Many years later Scyles, the son of Ariapeithes, suffered a like fate. To Ariapeithes, king of the Scythians, among other children a son Scyles was born; he was born of a woman of Istria who was in no way a native, and this mother taught him the Greek language and letters.

2In the course of time Ariapeithes was killed by a trick at the hands of Spargapeithes, king of the Agathyrsi; and Scyles took over the kingdom, and the wife of his father as well, whose name was Opoie; and this Opoie was a native woman, and by her Ariapeithes had a son Oricus.

3Ruling over the Scythians, Scyles in no way liked the Scythian way of life, but was turned far more toward the Greek ways because of the upbringing he had been given; and he did as follows: whenever he led the army of the Scythians to the city of the Borysthenites—and these Borysthenites say that they are Milesians—whenever Scyles came to them, he would leave the army in the suburb;

4and when he had entered within the wall and closed the gates, he would put off his Scythian dress and take up Greek clothing, and wearing it he would go about the market with no spearmen following him or anyone else; and the gates were guarded, so that none of the Scythians might see him wearing this dress; and in all other ways too he lived the Greek life and made sacrifices to the gods according to Greek custom.

5When he had spent a month or more in the place, he would depart, putting on the Scythian dress again. This he did many times, and he built a house in Borysthenes and married a woman of that country into it.

Chapter 79

1When it was fated that he should come to a bad end, it came about from a cause of this kind: he desired to be initiated into the rites of Dionysus the Baccheus; and as he was about to set about the initiation, a great portent befell him.

2He had in the city of the Borysthenites a precinct of a great and costly house, of which I made a little mention a short while back, and around it stood sphinxes and griffins of white stone; upon this the god hurled a thunderbolt. And it was wholly burned; yet Scyles for all that carried out the initiation.

3The Scythians reproach the Greeks for this Bacchic reveling; for they say it is not reasonable that a god should be found who drives men into madness.

4When Scyles had been initiated into the Bacchic rites, one of the Borysthenites went to the Scythians and taunted them, saying: "You Scythians mock us because we revel and the god takes possession of us; now this very power has seized your king as well, and he revels and is driven mad by the god. If you do not believe me, follow me, and I will show him to you."

5The leading men of the Scythians followed, and the Borysthenite led them up and set them secretly in a tower. And when Scyles passed by with his thiasos and the Scythians saw him reveling, they counted it a very great calamity; and going out they reported to the whole army what they had seen.

Chapter 80

1When after this Scyles set out for his own country, the Scythians set up his brother Octamasades, who was born of the daughter of Teres, and rose against Scyles.

2He, learning what was being done against him and the reason for which it was being done, fled into Thrace. Octamasades, learning of this, marched against Thrace. When he came to the Ister, the Thracians met him; and as the two were about to join battle, Sitalces sent a messenger to Octamasades with these words:

3"Why must we make trial of one another? You have my sister's son, and you have my brother as well. Give me back my brother, and I will hand your Scyles over to you; and let neither you nor I risk an army."

4This is the message Sitalces sent to him; for a brother of Sitalces had taken refuge with Octamasades. Octamasades agreed to this, and surrendering his own maternal uncle to Sitalces he received his brother Scyles.

5Sitalces then took his brother and led him away; but Scyles was beheaded on the spot by Octamasades. Such is the care the Scythians take of their own customs, and such are the penalties they lay on those who adopt foreign ways.

Chapter 81

1The number of the Scythians I was not able to learn exactly, but I heard different accounts of their total; for some say they are very numerous, and others that they are few, for a Scythian people.

2So much at least they demonstrated to me with visible proof. There is a place between the river Borysthenes and the Hypanis, and its name is Exam-paeus; of this too I made some mention a short while back, saying that in it there is a spring of bitter water, from which the water flows out and makes the Hypanis undrinkable.

3In this place lies a bronze vessel, six times the size of the mixing-bowl at the mouth of the Pontus, which Pausanias son of Cleombrotus dedicated.

4To anyone who has never seen that bowl, I will make it plain: the bronze vessel among the Scythians easily holds six hundred amphoras, and the thickness of this Scythian vessel is six fingers. This, the people of the country said, was made from arrowheads.

5For their king, whose name was Ariantas, wishing to know the number of the Scythians, commanded every Scythian to bring one arrowhead from his arrow; and whoever did not bring one, he threatened with death.

6A vast number of arrowheads was brought; and he resolved to make a memorial from them and leave it behind. From these he had this vessel made and dedicated it in this Exam-paeus. This is what I heard about the number of the Scythians.

Chapter 82

1This country has no marvels, except that it has rivers very much the greatest and the most numerous in number. But it presents one thing besides the rivers and the size of the plain that is worth wondering at, and I shall tell it: they show a footprint of Heracles in a rock, which looks like a man's step, and is two cubits in size, beside the river Tyras. So much then for this; and I will go back to the story I set out to tell at the beginning.

Chapter 83

1While Darius was preparing his expedition against the Scythians and sending messengers to command some to furnish an infantry army, some ships, and others to bridge the Thracian Bosporus, Artabanus son of Hystaspes, Darius' brother, urged him by no means to make an expedition against the Scythians, setting out the difficulties of dealing with the Scythians.

2But since he could not persuade him by giving him sound advice, he desisted; and Darius, when everything was ready, marched his army out of Susa.

Chapter 84

1There a Persian, Oiobazus, begged Darius, since he had three sons and all of them were going on the campaign, that one be left behind for him. But Darius said that, since he was a friend and his request was a modest one, he would leave him all his sons.

2Oiobazus then was overjoyed, expecting his sons to be released from the campaign; but Darius ordered those in charge of these matters to kill every one of the sons of Oiobazus.

Chapter 85

1These men then were cut down and left lying where they fell. Darius, marching on from Susa, came to the Bosporus on the Chalcedonian side where the bridge had been thrown across; embarking there in a ship he sailed to the rocks called the Cyanean, which the Greeks say were once wandering, and sitting on a headland he gazed out over the Pontus, a sight well worth seeing.

2For of all seas it is by nature the most marvelous: its length is eleven thousand one hundred stades, and its breadth, where it is widest of itself, three thousand three hundred stades.

3The mouth of this sea is four stades wide; and the length of the neck of the mouth, which is called the Bosporus, where the bridge was thrown across, is one hundred and twenty stades. The Bosporus stretches on to the Propontis;

4and the Propontis, which is five hundred stades wide and fifteen hundred long, empties into the Hellespont, which is seven stades across and four hundred long. And the Hellespont empties into the gulf of sea called the Aegean.

Chapter 86

1These distances have been measured as follows: a ship on an average covers about seventy thousand fathoms in a long day's sailing, and sixty thousand in a night.

2Now to the Phasis from the mouth of the Pontus—for this is its longest reach—is a voyage of nine days and eight nights; this makes one hundred and eleven myriads of fathoms, and out of these fathoms there are eleven thousand one hundred stades.

3To Themiscyra on the river Thermodon, from the Sindic country—for there the Pontus is at its widest—is a voyage of three days and two nights; this makes thirty-three myriads of fathoms, or three thousand three hundred stades.

4The Pontus then and the Bosporus and the Hellespont have thus been measured by me, and their nature is as I have described. This Pontus has also a lake that empties into it, not much smaller than itself, which is called the Maeotian and the Mother of the Pontus.

Chapter 87

1When Darius had surveyed the Pontus he sailed back to the bridge, whose architect was Mandrocles of Samos; and having surveyed the Bosporus as well he set up two pillars of white stone upon it, cutting inscriptions upon them, one in Assyrian and one in Greek, of all the nations he was leading—and he was leading every people he ruled. Of these there were counted seventy myriads of men, apart from the fleet, horse included; and six hundred ships were gathered.

2These pillars the Byzantines later carried into their city and used for the altar of Artemis Orthosia, all except one stone; this one was left lying beside the temple of Dionysus in Byzantium, covered with Assyrian letters. And the place on the Bosporus where King Darius bridged it is, as my reckoning makes it, midway between Byzantium and the temple at the mouth.

Chapter 88

1Darius after this, well pleased with the bridge of boats, rewarded its architect Mandrocles of Samos with ten of everything; and of these Mandrocles took a tithe and had a picture made of the whole bridging of the Bosporus, showing King Darius seated in the place of honor and his army crossing, and this he dedicated in the temple of Hera, inscribing it thus:

2"Having bridged the fish-filled Bosporus, Mandrocles dedicated this memorial of the bridge to Hera, / winning a crown for himself and glory for the Samians, / having accomplished the purpose of King Darius."

Chapter 89

1These then were the memorials made by the man who bridged the bridge. Darius, having rewarded Mandrocles, crossed over into Europe, after charging the Ionians to sail up the Pontus as far as the river Ister, and when they reached the Ister, there to wait for him, bridging the river. For the fleet was commanded by the Ionians and the Aeolians and the Hellespontians.

2The naval force then sailed past the Cyanean rocks and made straight for the Ister; and sailing two days' voyage up the river from the sea, at the neck of the river where the mouths of the Ister divide, they bridged it.

3Darius, when he had crossed the Bosporus by the bridge, marched through Thrace; and coming to the sources of the river Tearus he encamped there for three days.

Chapter 90

1The Tearus is said by the people of the neighborhood to be the best of all rivers for healing, in other respects as well, and especially for curing scab in men and horses. Its springs are two short of forty, all flowing from the same rock, and some of them are cold and some warm.

2The road to them is of equal length from the city of Heraea near Perinthus and from Apollonia on the Euxine Pontus, two days' journey from each. This Tearus empties into the river Contadesdus, the Contadesdus into the Agrianes, the Agrianes into the Hebrus, and the Hebrus into the sea by the city of Aenus.

Chapter 91

1When Darius came to this river and encamped there, being well pleased with the river he set up a pillar here too, with letters carved upon it that said this:

2"The headwaters of the river Tearus provide the best and fairest water of all rivers; and to them came, marching against the Scythians, the best and fairest of all men, Darius son of Hystaspes, king of the Persians and of all the mainland. This was written here."

Chapter 92

1Darius, setting out from there, came to another river whose name is the Arteskos, which flows through the land of the Odrysae. Coming to this river he did as follows: marking out a place for the army, he ordered every man as he passed by to lay one stone in this marked place. When the army had carried this out, he left great mounds of the stones there and marched the army on.

Chapter 93

1Before he reached the Ister he first subdued the Getae, who claim to be immortal. For the Thracians who hold Salmydessus and live above Apollonia and the city of Mesembria, called the Cyrmianae and the Nipsaei, gave themselves up to Darius without a battle; but the Getae, refusing to submit, were quickly enslaved, though they are the bravest and most just of all the Thracians.

Chapter 94

1Their claim to immortality is this: they believe that they do not die, but that whoever perishes goes to Salmoxis, a daimon; and some of them call this same being Gebeleizis.

2Once every five years they send one of their own number, chosen by lot, as a messenger to Salmoxis, charging him with the requests of each; and they send him thus: some of those appointed hold three javelins, and others seize the hands and feet of the man who is being sent to Salmoxis and, swinging him up, throw him onto the points. If he is killed by the spears, the god is thought to be gracious to them;

3but if he is not killed, they blame the messenger himself, saying that he is a wicked man; and having blamed him they send another; and to him, while he is still alive, they give their charges.

4These same Thracians shoot arrows upward at the thunder and lightning and threaten the god, holding that there is no other god at all except their own.

Chapter 95

1As I learn from the Greeks who live on the Hellespont and the Pontus, this Salmoxis was a man who was a slave in Samos, the slave of Pythagoras son of Mnesarchus;

2and there he became free and acquired great wealth, and with his wealth he returned to his own land. Now the Thracians live poorly and are rather simple in their wits; but this Salmoxis knew the Ionian way of life and ways of thought deeper than the Thracian, since he had consorted with Greeks and with Pythagoras, who was no weak thinker among the Greeks;

3so he built a hall where he entertained the foremost of the citizens and feasted them, teaching them that neither they, nor their companions at the feast, nor their descendants after them would die, but would come to a place where they would live forever and have every good thing.

4While he was doing and saying what I have described, he was meanwhile building himself an underground chamber. When it was entirely finished, he vanished from among the Thracians; and going down into the underground chamber he lived there for three years,

5while they longed for him and mourned him as dead. But in the fourth year he appeared to the Thracians, and so the words of Salmoxis came to be believed by them. This is what they say he did.

Chapter 96

1For my part, I neither disbelieve the story of Salmoxis and his underground chamber, nor do I place too much faith in it; but I think that this Salmoxis lived many years before Pythagoras.

2Whether there was a man Salmoxis, or whether he is a daimon native to the Getae, farewell to him. These people then, who use such customs, when they were subdued by the Persians followed along with the rest of the army.

Chapter 97

1When Darius and the army on foot with him had come to the Ister and all had crossed over, Darius ordered the Ionians to break up the bridge and follow him by land, both they and the force from the ships.

2As the Ionians were about to break it up and carry out their orders, Coes son of Erxander, general of the Mytilenaeans, spoke to Darius as follows—having first asked whether it was agreeable to him to hear the opinion of any man who wished to offer counsel:

3"O king, since you are about to march against a land in which nothing tilled will be seen and no inhabited city, leave this bridge standing where it is, and leave as its guardians those very men who bridged it.

4Then if we succeed in finding the Scythians, there is a way home for us; and if we cannot find them, at least our way home is safe. For my part, I have never yet feared that we should be worsted by the Scythians in battle; I fear rather that, failing to find them, we may come to some harm in our wanderings.

5Someone might say that I say this for my own sake, because I want to stay behind; but I bring into your midst the best counsel I can find, for you, king, and I myself will follow you and will not be left behind."

6Darius was very pleased with this opinion and answered him thus: "My Lesbian friend, when I am safe home again to my own house, be sure to come before me, that I may reward you for your good counsel with good deeds."

Chapter 98

1When he had said this and tied sixty knots in a thong, he called the Ionian tyrants to a conference and spoke as follows:

2"Ionian men, let my former decision about the bridge be changed; take this thong and do as follows. As soon as you see me setting out against the Scythians, from that time on untie one knot each day; but if within that time I do not return, and your days for the knots run out, then sail away to your own homes.

3Until then, since my mind has been changed, guard the bridge, showing all diligence for its safety and preservation. By doing this you will earn my great gratitude." Darius said this and pressed on forward.

Chapter 99

1Thrace lies out toward the sea in front of the Scythian land; and where this land forms a gulf, Scythia takes up the coast, and the Ister empties into it, its mouth turned toward the east wind.

2From the Ister onward I shall go on to set out the measure of the part of the Scythian land that lies along the sea. From the Ister begins the ancient Scythia, lying toward the south and the south wind, as far as the city called Carcinitis.

3Beyond this the Tauric nation holds the coast, the same strip as before, a hilly country jutting out into the Pontus, as far as the promontory called the Rough; and this reaches down to the sea that faces the east wind.

4For two of the boundaries of Scythia run down to the sea, that toward the south and that toward the east, just as with the land of Attica; and the Tauri hold a part of Scythia much like it, as though another nation, and not the Athenians, held the Sunian headland of Attica, the headland jutting out further into the sea, the stretch from Thorikus to the deme of Anaphlystus.

5I say this as though comparing small with great; such is the Tauric land. For anyone who has not sailed past this part of Attica I will make it clear another way: as though another nation, and not the Iapygians, held the Iapygian land, beginning from the harbor of Brundisium and cutting it off as far as Tarentum, and occupied the headland. Though I name these two, I mean many like them; the Tauric land resembles such as these.

Chapter 100

1Beyond the Tauric land the Scythians hold the country above the Tauri and the coast of the eastern sea, from the Cimmerian Bosporus on its western side and the Maeotian lake as far as the river Tanais, which empties into the innermost corner of that lake.

2Inland from the Ister the interior of Scythia is shut off first by the Agathyrsi, next by the Neuri, then by the Androphagi, and last by the Melanchlaeni.

Chapter 101

1Scythia then, since it is square-shaped and two of its sides run down to the sea, is of equal extent inland and along the sea.

2From the Ister to the Borysthenes is a journey of ten days, and from the Borysthenes to the Maeotian lake another ten; and from the sea inland to the Melanchlaeni, who live above the Scythians, is a journey of twenty days.

3A day's journey I reckon at two hundred stades. Thus the breadth of Scythia would be four thousand stades, and the distance running inland to the interior as much again. Such then is the size of this land.

Chapter 102

1The Scythians, taking counsel among themselves and seeing that they were not able by themselves to repel the army of Darius in open battle, sent messengers to their neighbors; and the kings of these peoples gathered together and took counsel, seeing that a great army was marching against them.

2The kings who gathered were those of the Tauri and the Agathyrsi and the Neuri and the Androphagi and the Melanchlaeni and the Geloni and the Budini and the Sauromatae.

Chapter 103

1Of these the Tauri use customs of the following kind: they sacrifice to the Maiden both men cast away by shipwreck and any Greeks whom they capture on their raids, in this way:

2after the first rites they strike the man on the head with a club. Some say that they thrust the body down from the cliff—for the temple stands on a cliff—and impale the head; others agree about the head, but say that the body is not thrust down from the cliff but buried in the earth. This goddess to whom they sacrifice, the Tauri themselves say, is Iphigenia daughter of Agamemnon.

3Men who are their enemies and whom they take prisoner they treat as follows: each cuts off the head and carries it home, and then impaling it on a great stake sets it up over his house, projecting far above it, above the smoke-hole in particular. These, they say, hang over the house as its guardians. And they live by plunder and war.

Chapter 104

1The Agathyrsi are the most luxurious of men and the greatest wearers of gold; and they have their women in common, so that they may all be brothers of one another and, being kinsmen all together, may neither envy nor hate one another. In their other customs they have adopted the Thracian ways.

Chapter 105

1The Neuri use Scythian customs; but one generation before the expedition of Darius they were compelled to leave their whole country because of snakes. For their land bred many snakes, and even more came down upon them from the deserts above, until at last, hard pressed, they left their own land and dwelt among the Budini. These people are thought to be sorcerers.

2For it is said by the Scythians and by the Greeks settled in Scythia that once each year every one of the Neuri becomes a wolf for a few days and then turns back again into the same man. For my part, this tale cannot convince me; but they tell it all the same, and swear to it as they tell it.

Chapter 106

1The Androphagi have the wildest customs of all men; they acknowledge no justice and follow no law at all; they are nomads, and they wear clothing like the Scythian, and have a language of their own; and they alone of these peoples eat men.

Chapter 107

1The Melanchlaeni all wear black clothing, from which they have their name, and use Scythian customs.

Chapter 108

1The Budini are a great and numerous nation, and all of them are strongly blue-eyed and red-haired. A city of wood has been built among them, and the name of the city is Gelonus; the wall of it is thirty stades on each side, and it is high and all of wood, and their houses are wooden and their temples as well.

2For there are temples of Greek gods there, set up in Greek fashion with images and altars and wooden shrines; and to Dionysus they hold triennial festivals and practice the Bacchic revels. For the Geloni are Greeks by origin, who were driven out from the trading posts and settled among the Budini; and they use the Scythian tongue for some things and the Greek for others.

Chapter 109

1The Budini do not speak the same language as the Geloni, nor do they live in the same way. The Budini are natives of the soil and are nomads, the only people in these parts who eat lice; the Geloni till the ground, live on grain, and keep gardens, and the two peoples are alike neither in appearance nor in complexion. By the Greeks, however, the Budini too are called Geloni, though the name is wrongly applied.

2All their country is thickly wooded with every kind of tree; and in the deepest part of the wood is a lake, great and wide, with a marsh and reeds around it. In it otters are caught, and beavers, and other animals with square faces, whose skins are sewn onto the cloaks, and their testicles are useful for the cure of diseases of the womb.

Chapter 110

1This is the story told about the Sauromatae. When the Greeks fought the Amazons—whom the Scythians call Oiorpata, a name that means in the Greek tongue "men-slayers," for oior is their word for a man and pata means to kill—the story goes that the Greeks, having won the battle on the Thermodon, sailed away, carrying off in three ships as many of the Amazons as they had been able to capture alive; but out at sea the Amazons fell upon them and cut the men down.

2They knew nothing of ships and had no use for rudder, sail, or oar; but after they had cut the men down they were driven on by wave and wind, and they came to the Cremni on Lake Maeotis. The Cremni are in the land of the free Scythians. There the Amazons disembarked from the ships and made their way into the inhabited country; and first coming upon a herd of horses they seized it, and riding on these they plundered the Scythians.

Chapter 111

1The Scythians could make nothing of the matter: they could not recognize their speech or their dress or their tribe, and they were at a loss to know where they had come from. They thought, however, that they were men of their own age, and so they joined battle with them; and after the battle the Scythians won possession of the dead, and thus discovered that they were women.

2So when they took counsel, they decided that they would on no account kill them any longer, but would send to them their youngest men, as many in number as those women were; these were to encamp near the women and do whatever the women did. If the women pursued them, they were not to fight but to flee; and when the women stopped, they were to come back and encamp near them again. This the Scythians resolved, wishing to have children born of the women. The young men who were sent out did as they had been ordered.

Chapter 112

1When the Amazons learned that the men had come with no intent to harm, they let them be, and day by day the two camps drew closer together. The young men had nothing, like the Amazons, but their weapons and their horses; they lived the same life as those women, hunting and plundering.

Chapter 113

1The Amazons did as follows at midday: they would scatter, one by one or in twos, drifting apart from one another for their own ease. When the Scythians noticed this, they did the same; and whenever one of the women was alone, a man would draw near her,

2and the Amazon did not push him away but let him have his way. She could not speak to him, for they did not understand one another, but with her hand she signaled him to come to the same place on the next day and to bring another with him, making signs that they should be two and that she too would bring another.

3The young man, when he left, told this to the rest; and on the second day he came to the place, bringing another with him, and found the Amazon waiting with a second woman beside her. When the rest of the young men learned of this, they too won over the rest of the Amazons.

Chapter 114

1After this the two camps joined and they lived together, each man having as his wife the woman with whom he had first lain. The men could not learn the women's language, but the women learned the men's.

2When they understood one another, the men spoke to the Amazons as follows: "We have parents, and we have possessions; so let us no longer live this life any longer, but go back to the body of our people and live among them. And we will have you for our wives and no others." To this the women replied as follows:

3"We could not live with your women, for our customs and theirs are not the same. We shoot with the bow and throw the javelin and ride horses, and we have learned no women's work; but your women do none of the things we have named—instead they stay in their wagons and do women's work, going neither out to the hunt nor anywhere else at all.

4So we could not come to terms with them. But if you wish to have us for your wives and to be thought upright men, go to your parents and take your share of their possessions, and then come back and let us live by ourselves." The young men agreed, and did this.

Chapter 115

1When they had taken their due share of the possessions and come back to the Amazons, the women spoke to them as follows:

2"Fear and dread hold us as to how we must live in this land—we who have robbed you of your fathers on the one hand, and on the other have done much harm to your country.

3But since you think fit to have us for your wives, do this together with us: come, let us leave this land, and crossing the river Tanais, let us settle there."

Chapter 116

1The young men agreed to this as well, and crossing the Tanais they traveled toward the rising sun for three days' journey from the Tanais, and three days northward from Lake Maeotis. Coming to the place where they now dwell, they settled there.

2And ever since, the women of the Sauromatae keep to their old way of life: they ride out to the hunt on horseback, both with their husbands and without them, they go to war, and they wear the same dress as the men.

Chapter 117

1The Sauromatae use the Scythian language, but they have spoken it incorrectly from the first, since the Amazons never learned it properly. Their customs about marriage are as follows: no maiden marries until she has killed a man of the enemy; and some of them grow old and die unmarried, because they cannot fulfill the law.

Chapter 118

1When the messengers of the Scythians came to the assembled kings of the peoples I have listed, they made their case, telling them this: the Persian, after he had subdued everything on the other continent, bridged the neck of the Bosporus and crossed over to this continent; and having crossed and subdued the Thracians, he is now bridging the river Ister, meaning to bring all this land too under his own rule.

2"So you must not sit idle in any way and watch us destroyed; instead, resolve as we do and let us meet the invader together. Will you not do this? For our part, hard pressed as we are, we shall either leave the country or, if we stay, come to terms with him.

3For what are we to suffer, if you are unwilling to help us? But nothing will be any easier for you for that. The Persian is coming against us no more than against you, and once he has subdued us he will not be content to keep his hands off you.

4And we shall give you a great proof of what we say. For if the Persian were marching against us alone, wishing to punish us for our former servitude, he ought to have left all the others alone and marched straight against our land; and then he would have shown everyone that he is driving against the Scythians and against no one else.

5But as it is, from the moment he crossed over to this continent, he has been bringing everyone who falls in his way to heel; he has the other Thracians under his rule, and the Getae too, who are our next neighbors."

Chapter 119

1While the Scythians were making these representations, the kings who had come from the various peoples took counsel, and their judgments were divided. The Gelonus, the Budinus, and the Sauromates, being of one mind, promised to help the Scythians; but the Agathyrsus, the Neurus, the Androphagus, and the kings of the Melanchlaeni and the Tauri returned this answer to the Scythians:

2"If it were not you who first wronged the Persians and began the war, then in making the request you now make you would appear to us to speak rightly, and we, agreeing with you, would do the same as you.

3But as it is, you invaded their land without us and harried the Persians for as long as the god gave you the power; and now that the same god stirs them up, they are paying you back in like kind.

4We, however, did no wrong to these men then, and we shall not now be the first to try to wrong them. But if the invader comes against our land too and begins to do us wrong, we shall not submit to him; until we see that happen, we shall stay where we are. For we think the Persians are coming not against us, but against those who were the cause of the wrong."

Chapter 120

1When the Scythians learned the report of these words, they resolved to fight no pitched battle in the open, since at least these peoples were not coming to their aid; but to draw back and retreat, filling in the wells they passed as they went and choking up the springs, and to strip the pasture from the ground, having divided themselves in two.

2One of the two divisions, the one Scopasis ruled, was to be joined by the Sauromatae; these were to withdraw, if the Persian turned that way, straight toward the river Tanais along by Lake Maeotis, retreating before him; and when the Persian drew off, they were to come on and pursue. This was one division of the kingdom, assigned to march this route, as I have said;

3the other two kingdoms—the great one over which Idanthyrsus ruled, and the third over which Taxacis was king—were to come together, and with the Geloni and the Budini joined to them, they too were to draw off, keeping a day's march ahead of the Persians, retreating and carrying out what had been resolved:

4first, to draw the Persians on into the lands of those who had refused to join their alliance, so as to make these peoples also their enemies; for if these would not willingly take up the war against the Persians, then they would make them take it up unwillingly. After this, they were to turn back into their own land and give battle, if so it seemed good to them in counsel.

Chapter 121

1Having so resolved, the Scythians went out to meet Darius' army, sending ahead the best of their horsemen as outriders. All the wagons in which their children and women lived, and all their flocks—except as much as was enough to feed them, which they left behind—all the rest they sent ahead with the wagons, charging them to drive always toward the north.

Chapter 122

1This, then, was sent on ahead. When the Scythian outriders found the Persians about three days' journey from the Ister, they, keeping a day's march in advance of them, encamped and leveled whatever grew from the ground,

2and the Persians, when they saw the Scythian horse appear, followed on their track as these kept drawing away; and then—for they had made for the one division—the Persians pursued them toward the east and straight toward the Tanais.

3When these had crossed the river Tanais, the Persians crossed after them and pursued, until, passing through the land of the Sauromatae, they came to the land of the Budini.

Chapter 123

1As long as the Persians were marching through the Scythian and the Sauromatian country, they had nothing to destroy, since the land was untilled; but when they began to invade the country of the Budini, there they came upon the wooden wall—the Budini had left it, and everything in it was empty—and they burned it down.

2Having done this, they kept following the trail forward, until, passing through that country, they came to the desert. This desert is inhabited by no men at all; it lies above the country of the Budini and is seven days' journey across.

3Beyond the desert live the Thyssagetae, and four great rivers flow from their land and, passing through the country of the Maeetae, empty into the lake called Maeotis. Their names are these: Lycus, Oarus, Tanais, Syrgis.

Chapter 124

1So when Darius came to the desert, he stopped his march and settled his army by the river Oarus. Having done this, he built eight great forts, standing equal distances apart, some sixty stades or so; the ruins of them were still sound in my own day.

2While he was busy with this, the Scythians he had been pursuing went round by the upper country and came back into Scythia. When they had vanished completely and no longer appeared to him at all, Darius left those forts half-built, and turned back himself and marched toward the west, supposing that these were all the Scythians and that they were fleeing westward.

Chapter 125

1Driving his army as fast as he could, when he came into Scythia he fell in with both divisions of the Scythians; and on coming upon them he pursued them as they drew away a day's march ahead.

2And since Darius did not relent but kept coming on, the Scythians, as they had planned, retreated before him into the lands of those who had refused their alliance—first into the land of the Melanchlaeni.

3When the Scythians and the Persians in their invasion had thrown these into confusion, the Scythians led the way into the territory of the Androphagi; when these too had been thrown into confusion, they withdrew toward the land of the Neuri; and when these in turn were being thrown into confusion, the Scythians retreated on into the country of the Agathyrsi.

4The Agathyrsi, seeing their neighbors fleeing before the Scythians and thrown into confusion, sent a herald before the Scythians could invade them and forbade the Scythians to set foot on their borders, warning them that if they tried to invade, they would have to fight with the Agathyrsi first.

5The Agathyrsi, having made this proclamation, mustered to their borders, intending to hold off the invaders; but the Melanchlaeni, the Androphagi, and the Neuri, when the Persians invaded together with the Scythians, neither turned to make a stand but, forgetting their threat, kept fleeing northward into the desert in confusion.

6The Scythians no longer came near the Agathyrsi, who had forbidden them; but withdrawing out of the land of the Neuri, they led the Persians into their own country.

Chapter 126

1When this went on for a long time and would not stop, Darius sent a horseman to the Scythian king Idanthyrsus with this message: "Strange man, why do you keep fleeing, when it is open to you to do one of these two things? If you think yourself a match for my power, stand still, leave off your wandering, and fight; but if you know yourself to be the weaker, then even so leave off running and come to terms with your master, bringing him earth and water."

Chapter 127

1To this the Scythian king Idanthyrsus replied: "This is how things stand with me, Persian. I have never yet fled from any man out of fear, and I am not fleeing from you now either; nor am I doing anything now more novel than what I am used to doing in peacetime.

2Why I do not fight with you at once, this too I will make clear. We have neither cities nor planted land, whose capture or burning might make us join battle with you the sooner; but if it must come to a quick issue, it so happens that we have our fathers' tombs:

3come, find these and try to destroy them, and then you will learn whether we will fight with you over the tombs or whether we will not. Until then, unless some reason compels us, we will not join battle with you.

4So much for battle. As for masters, I acknowledge none but Zeus my forefather and Hestia, queen of the Scythians. In place of your gift of earth and water I shall send you such gifts as it is fitting for you to receive; and in return for calling yourself my master, I bid you go and weep." That is the message from the Scythians.

Chapter 128

1So the herald went off to announce this to Darius; and the Scythian kings, on hearing the word "slavery," were filled with anger.

2The division assigned to the Sauromatae, the one Scopasis ruled, they sent to the Ionians who were guarding the bridge over the Ister, bidding them come to a conference; and the rest resolved to lead the Persians about no longer, but to fall upon them whenever they were gathering provisions. So watching for the moment when Darius' men were gathering provisions, they carried out their plan.

3The Scythian horse kept routing the Persian horse; and the Persian horsemen, fleeing, would fall back on the infantry, and the infantry would come to their support. Then the Scythians, having broken the horse, would turn back, fearing the infantry. And the Scythians made similar attacks by night as well.

Chapter 129

1What was an ally to the Persians and a hindrance to the Scythians whenever they attacked Darius' camp, I shall tell—a very great wonder: the braying of the asses and the look of the mules.

2For the Scythian land breeds neither ass nor mule, as I have shown before; and in all of Scythia there is no ass or mule at all, because of the cold. The asses, then, with their braying, threw the Scythian horse into confusion.

3Often, when the Scythians were charging against the Persians, whenever the horses heard the braying of the asses they would be thrown into confusion and wheel about in great wonder, pricking up their ears, since they had neither heard such a sound before nor seen the shape of the creature.

Chapter 130

1These, then, were but petty dealings of the war. But whenever the Scythians saw the Persians thrown into confusion, in order that they might stay the longer in Scythia and, staying, be in want of all things, they did as follows: leaving some of their own flocks behind with the herdsmen, they themselves would drive off to another country. The Persians would come upon the sheep and take them; and taking them, they would be the more encouraged by what they had won.

Chapter 131

1When this had happened many times, at last Darius found himself at a loss; and the Scythian kings, learning of it, sent a herald to Darius carrying gifts: a bird, a mouse, a frog, and five arrows.

2The Persians asked the bearer of the gifts what the gifts meant. He said he had been given no other orders than to deliver them and be off as quickly as possible; the Persians themselves, he told them, must, if they were wise, make out what the gifts had to say.

Chapter 132

1The Persians heard this and took counsel. Darius' judgment was that the Scythians were giving themselves up to him, with their land and water; and he reasoned thus: a mouse is a creature of the earth and eats the same grain as men, a frog lives in water, a bird is most like a horse, and the arrows mean that they are surrendering their power to fight.

2This was the judgment Darius declared. But the judgment of Gobryas, one of the seven men who had overthrown the Magus, agreed with it, his reading of the gifts being this:

3"Unless you become birds and fly up into the sky, O Persians, or become mice and burrow down into the earth, or become frogs and leap into the lakes, you will never make your way home, shot down by these arrows."

Chapter 133

1Such was the Persians' reading of the gifts. Meanwhile the one division of the Scythians, the one ordered first to keep watch by Lake Maeotis and then to go to the Ister to confer with the Ionians, when it reached the bridge spoke as follows:

2"Men of Ionia, we have come bringing you freedom, if only you are willing to hear us. For we learn that Darius ordered you to guard the bridge for sixty days only, and if he himself did not appear within that time, to go back to your own land.

3If then you do this, you will stand clear of blame from him and clear of blame from us: wait out the days that lie before you, and after that be gone." When the Ionians had promised to do this, the Scythians hastened back with all speed.

Chapter 134

1After the gifts had come to Darius, the Scythians who were left behind drew up against the Persians with foot soldiers and horse, as if about to join battle. As the Scythians stood in their ranks, a hare ran out into the middle; and each of them, as he saw the hare, gave chase. When the Scythians were thrown into confusion and raised a shout, Darius asked the reason for the uproar among his enemies; and learning that they were chasing a hare, he said to those with whom he was accustomed to confer:

2"These men hold us in utter contempt; and now it seems to me that Gobryas spoke rightly about the Scythian gifts. Since matters appear so both to him and to me, we need good counsel, so that our journey home may be safe." To this Gobryas said: "O King, I knew the straits these men are in well enough even by report; but since I came here I have learned it better, seeing that they are making game of us.

3So now my advice is that, as soon as night comes on, we light the fires as we are accustomed to do at other times, mislead the weakest of the soldiers about the hardships ahead, and tying up all the asses make our escape—before the Scythians make for the Ister to break the bridge, or the Ionians resolve on some course that could be the end of us."

Chapter 135

1This was Gobryas' advice. Night fell, and Darius followed this plan: he tied up all the asses and left behind in the camp the worn-out men, those whose loss would be least felt.

2He left behind the asses and the weakest men of the army for these reasons: the asses were to keep up a noise; and the men were left behind on account of their weakness, but with this for a pretext—that he himself was about to fall upon the Scythians with the picked part of the army, while they guarded the camp meanwhile.

3Having given these instructions to those left behind and lit the fires, Darius hurried with all speed to the Ister. The asses, deprived of the crowd, now brayed far more loudly; and the Scythians, hearing the asses, fully believed that the Persians were still where they were.

Chapter 136

1When day came and those left behind realized that they had been betrayed by Darius, they held out their hands to the Scythians and told them how things stood. On hearing this the Scythians mustered with all speed—the two divisions and the one, together with the Sauromatae, Budini, and Geloni—and pursued the Persians straight toward the Ister.

2Now most of the Persian force was infantry and did not know the roads, so that no tracks had been cut, whereas the Scythians were horsemen who knew the short cuts; and the two missed one another, so that the Scythians arrived at the bridge far ahead of the Persians.

3Learning that the Persians had not yet come, they spoke to the Ionians who were in the ships: "Men of Ionia, the days of your count have run out, and you are no longer doing right to remain where you are.

4But since you stayed on before out of fear, now break the crossing and be gone at once in joy and freedom, giving thanks to the gods and to the Scythians. As for the man who was once your master, we shall deal with him so that he will never again make war on any people."

Chapter 137

1To this the Ionians took counsel. Miltiades the Athenian, who was general and tyrant of the Chersonesites on the Hellespont, was of the opinion to obey the Scythians and set Ionia free;

2but Histiaeus of Miletus held the opposite view, saying that it was thanks to Darius that each of them was tyrant of his city; and if Darius' power were overthrown, neither would he himself be able to rule the Milesians nor anyone else anywhere—for every city would prefer to be under a democracy rather than under a tyranny.

3When Histiaeus put forward this opinion, all of them at once turned to it, though before they had preferred Miltiades'.

Chapter 138

1These were the men whose votes decided the matter and who stood high with the king: of the Hellespontines, the tyrants Daphnis of Abydos, Hippoclus of Lampsacus, Herophantus of Parium, Metrodorus of Proconnesus, Aristagoras of Cyzicus, and Ariston of Byzantium.

2These were the men from the Hellespont; from Ionia came Stratius of Chios, Aeaces of Samos, Laodamas of Phocaea, and Histiaeus of Miletus, whose opinion, as I have shown, was opposed to Miltiades'. Of the Aeolians only Aristagoras of Cyme was there, a man of standing.

Chapter 139

1So when they had chosen Histiaeus' opinion, they resolved to add to it these deeds and words: they would break down the part of the bridge that faced Scythia, but only so far as an arrow could reach, so that they might seem to be doing something while really doing nothing, and so that the Scythians might not attempt to force a crossing and cross the Ister by the bridge; and as they broke the part of the bridge that led toward Scythia, they would say that they would do everything that was to the Scythians' liking.

2This they added to the plan. Then Histiaeus answered on behalf of all, speaking thus: "Men of Scythia, you have come bringing good news, and you are hurrying at the right moment; what comes from you is well meant toward us, and what comes from us toward you is being duly carried out. For as you see, we are breaking the crossing, and we shall show every eagerness, since we wish to be free.

3While we are breaking this down, it is your moment to go in search of those men; and when you find them, take vengeance for us and for yourselves as those men deserve."

Chapter 140

1So the Scythians, believing for the second time that the Ionians were speaking the truth, turned back to look for the Persians, and they missed the whole of the enemy's line of march. The cause of this was the Scythians themselves: they had destroyed the grazing grounds in those parts and choked up the watering places.

2For if they had not done this, they could easily have found the Persians, had they wished. As it was, by the very measures they thought they had planned best, they were thrown off the scent.

3The Scythians, then, searched for their enemies by way of those parts of their own country where there was fodder for the horses and water, believing that the Persians too were making their escape along such a route. The Persians held to the track they had made before, and so found the crossing only with difficulty.

4And since they arrived at night and found the bridge already broken, they fell into a great fear that the Ionians had abandoned them.

Chapter 141

1There was with Darius an Egyptian, the loudest-voiced man in the world. This man Darius set on the bank of the Ister and ordered to call to Histiaeus of Miletus. The man did so, and Histiaeus, hearing the first summons, brought all the ships across to carry the army over and joined the bridge.

Chapter 142

1So the Persians escaped; but the Scythians, searching for them, missed the Persians a second time. On the one hand they judge the Ionians, as free men, to be the most worthless and the most unmanly of all men; on the other, speaking of them as slaves, they say that such slaves dote on their masters and are good for nothing. Such are the taunts the Scythians cast at the Ionians.

Chapter 143

1Darius, marching through Thrace, came to Sestos in the Chersonese. From there he crossed by ship to Asia, but left behind in Europe a Persian, Megabazus, as general; to whom Darius once granted an honor, having spoken this word among the Persians:

2Once, as Darius was about to eat pomegranates, as soon as he opened the first of them his brother Artabanus asked him what he would like to have as many of as there were seeds in that pomegranate; and Darius said that he would rather have that many men like Megabazus than have Hellas subject to him.

3Such was the honor he paid him, speaking thus among the Persians; and now he left him behind as general, with eighty thousand men of his army.

Chapter 144

1This Megabazus, by a word he spoke, left behind an immortal memory among the people of the Hellespont.

2For when he came to Byzantium he learned that the Chalcedonians had settled there seventeen years before the Byzantians; and on learning this he said that the Chalcedonians must have been blind at the time: for if they had not been blind, they would never have chosen the worse place to settle when the better lay at hand.

3So this Megabazus, left behind as general in the country of the Hellespontines, subdued those who did not side with the Medes.

Chapter 145

1He was engaged on this; and at the same time another great armament was being made against Libya, for the reason I shall tell, after first recounting this much.

2The sons of the sons of the men who sailed in the Argo, driven out of Lemnos by the Pelasgians who had carried off the Athenian women from Brauron, sailed away to Lacedaemon; and sitting down on Taygetus they lit a fire.

3The Lacedaemonians, seeing this, sent a messenger to ask who they were and where they had come from; and to the messenger's questions they said that they were Minyae, sons of the heroes who had sailed in the Argo, and that these, putting in at Lemnos, had begotten them.

4When the Lacedaemonians heard the story of the Minyae's lineage, they sent a second time and asked with what intent they had come into the country and lit a fire. They said that they had been driven out by the Pelasgians and had come to their fathers; for this, they said, was the just course. They asked to settle along with them, sharing in their honors and receiving a portion of the land.

5The Lacedaemonians decided to receive the Minyae on such terms as they themselves wished. What most led them to do this was the voyage of the Tyndaridae in the Argo. Having received the Minyae, they gave them a share of the land and distributed them among the tribes. The Minyae at once took wives, and gave in marriage to others the women they had brought from Lemnos.

Chapter 146

1Not long afterward the Minyae broke out into insolence, laying claim to a share in the royal power and committing other unholy deeds.

2So the Lacedaemonians decided to put them to death; they seized them and cast them into prison. The Lacedaemonians put to death whatever men they put to death at night, never by day.

3When they were about to make an end of them, the wives of the Minyae, who were citizens themselves and daughters of the foremost Spartans, asked leave to enter the prison and speak with each her own husband. They were let in, since no one suspected any trick from them.

4When they had entered, they did as follows: they gave all the clothing they had to their husbands and took the men's clothing instead; and the Minyae, putting on the women's clothing, went out as if they were women, and escaping in this way they sat down again on Taygetus.

Chapter 147

1At this same time Theras son of Autesion son of Tisamenus son of Thersander son of Polynices was leading out a colony from Lacedaemon.

2This Theras, being of Cadmean stock, was the mother's brother of Aristodemus' sons, Eurysthenes and Procles; and while these boys were still infants, Theras held the regency of the kingdom at Sparta.

3When his nephews had grown up and taken over the rule, Theras, thinking it a terrible thing to be subject to others now that he had tasted power, said that he would not stay in Lacedaemon but would sail away to his own kin.

4There lived in the island now called Thera, but before that Calliste—the same island—descendants of Membliares son of Poeciles, a Phoenician. For Cadmus son of Agenor, when seeking Europa, put in at the island now called Thera; and whether the country pleased him, or whether he wished to do this for some other reason, he left on the island others of the Phoenicians and also one of his own kin, Membliares.

5These held Calliste, as it was called, for eight generations of men, before Theras came from Lacedaemon.

Chapter 148

1It was to these, then, that Theras sailed out, taking men from the tribes to settle with them, with no thought of driving them out, but rather claiming them as kin.

2When the Minyae had broken out of the prison and settled on Taygetus, and the Lacedaemonians were planning to destroy them, Theras pleaded on their behalf that there be no bloodshed, and himself undertook to lead them out of the country.

3When the Lacedaemonians agreed to his proposal, he sailed with three thirty-oared ships to the descendants of Membliares, taking not all the Minyae but only a few of them.

4For most of them turned to the Paroreatae and the Caucones; driving these out of the country, they divided themselves into six portions, and then founded these cities in it: Lepreum, Macistus, Phrixae, Pyrgus, Epium, and Nudium. Most of these the Eleans destroyed in my time. The island took its name from its founder, Theras.

Chapter 149

1But the boy—for he said he would not sail with him—so Theras said he would leave him a sheep among wolves. From this saying the young man came to be called Oeolycus, and the name somehow stuck. Oeolycus had a son Aegeus, after whom the great tribe Aegeidae at Sparta is named.

2Since the children of the men of this tribe did not survive, they set up, on an oracle, a sanctuary of the Furies of Laius and Oedipus; and after that the children lived, the same thing happening also in Thera among the descendants of these men.

Chapter 150

1Up to this point in the story the Lacedaemonians and the Therans tell the same tale; but from here on the Therans alone tell how it came about.

2Grinus son of Aesanius, a descendant of this Theras and king of the island of Thera, came to Delphi, bringing a hecatomb from his city; and other citizens went with him, among them Battus son of Polymnestus, of the house of Euphemus, one of the Minyae.

3When King Grinus of the Therans consulted the oracle about other matters, the Pythia told him to found a city in Libya. He replied: "My lord, I am already too old and too heavy to move; but order one of these younger men to do this." As he spoke, he pointed to Battus.

4That was all at the time; but afterwards they went away and paid no heed to the oracle, since they did not know where in the world Libya was, and did not dare to send out a colony to a place they could not see.

Chapter 151

1For seven years after this no rain fell on Thera, and in that time all the trees in the island withered, except one. When the Therans consulted the oracle, the Pythia kept offering them the founding of a colony in Libya.

2Since no remedy for their troubles could be found, they sent messengers to Crete to inquire whether any Cretan or settler had ever reached Libya. Wandering about Crete, these men came also to the city of Itanus, and there they met a man gathering purple shellfish, named Corobius, who said that he had been carried by winds to Libya, and in Libya to the island of Platea.

3Persuading this man with a fee, they brought him to Thera; and from Thera a few men sailed out first as scouts. Guided by Corobius to that island of Platea, they left him there, leaving behind provisions for some number of months, and themselves sailed back with all speed to report to the Therans about the island.

Chapter 152

1While these were away longer than the agreed time, Corobius ran out of everything; and after that a Samian ship, whose master was Colaeus, sailing for Egypt, was driven to this Platea. The Samians learned the whole story from Corobius and left him provisions for a year.

2Setting out from the island and making for Egypt, they sailed on, carried by the east wind; and since the wind would not let up, they passed beyond the Pillars of Heracles and came to Tartessus, guided by the hand of god.

3This trading place was untouched at that time, so that these men, on their return home, made the greatest profit from cargo of all the Greeks whose doings we know for certain—that is, except Sostratus son of Laodamas of Aegina; for no one can rival him.

4The Samians set aside a tenth of their winnings—six talents—and made a bronze mixing-bowl in the Argive fashion, with griffin's heads standing out around it in a row. They dedicated it in the Heraeum, setting up beneath it three bronze colossi seven cubits tall, resting on their knees.

5From this deed the Cyrenaeans and the Therans first formed great ties of friendship with the Samians.

Chapter 153

1When the Therans reached Thera, having left Corobius on the island, they reported that a settlement had been founded off Libya. The Therans resolved to send out a man chosen by lot from every family, brother from brother, and from all their districts—which were seven—and to make Battus their leader and king. So they sent out two fifty-oared ships to Platea.

Chapter 154

1So much the Therans say; but on the rest of the story the Therans and the Cyrenaeans now agree. For on all that concerns Battus the Cyrenaeans do not at all agree with the Therans; their account is this. In Crete there is the city of Oaxus, where there was a king Etearchus, who had a motherless daughter named Phronime; to her he married another wife.

2This woman, coming into the house, resolved to be a stepmother to Phronime in deed and truth, doing her harm and contriving everything against her; and at last, having charged her with wantonness, she persuaded her husband that matters stood so. He, won over by his wife, contrived an unholy deed against his daughter.

3There was at Oaxus a Theran merchant named Themison. This man Etearchus took to his table and bound with an oath that he would serve him in whatever he asked. When he had made him swear, he brought in his own daughter and handed her over to him, ordering him to take her away and drown her at sea.

4But Themison, resenting the trick played upon his oath and breaking off the bond of hospitality, did as follows: he took the girl aboard and sailed away; and when he was out on the open sea, to be quit of the oath Etearchus had laid on him, he bound her with ropes and let her down into the sea, then hauled her up again and came to Thera.

Chapter 155

1From there Polymnestus, a man of standing among the Therans, took Phronime and kept her as his concubine. In the course of time she bore him a son with a stammering and lisping voice, to whom the name Battus was given, as the Therans and the Cyrenaeans say; but as I think, he was named something else.

2Battus was the name he took afterward, when he had come to Libya, taking the surname from the oracle given him at Delphi and from the honor he received. For the Libyans call a king battus; and this is why I think the Pythia, when she prophesied, called him by the Libyan word, knowing that he would be king in Libya.

3For when he grew to manhood, he came to Delphi about his speech; and as he asked about it, the Pythia gave him this answer: "Battus, you have come for a voice. Lord Phoebus Apollo sends you to Libya to found a home where sheep are pastured." This was as if she had said in the Greek tongue: "King, you have come for a voice."

4He replied with these words: "My lord, I came to you to consult you about my speech, but you answer me with impossible things, bidding me found a colony in Libya—with what power, with what hands?" Saying this he did not persuade the god to give him any other answer; and when she prophesied the same as before, Battus left her in the middle of it and went back to Thera.

Chapter 156

1After this things went badly both for him and for the rest of the Therans. Not knowing what to make of their troubles, the Therans sent to Delphi about the evils that beset them.

2The Pythia answered that they would do better if they joined with Battus in founding Cyrene in Libya. After this the Therans sent Battus out with two fifty-oared ships. These men sailed to Libya; but since they had nothing else they could do, they sailed back to Thera.

3The Therans shot at them as they tried to land and would not let them put in to shore, but ordered them to sail back again. Forced to it, they sailed away and founded an island lying off Libya, which, as I said before, is called Platea. This island is said to be as large as the city of the Cyrenaeans is now.

Chapter 157

1Living there for two years—for nothing good came of it—they left one of their number behind and all the rest sailed to Delphi; and coming to the oracle they consulted it, saying that they were settled in Libya but were no better off for living there.

2The Pythia answered them with this verse: "If you know sheep-pasturing Libya better than I, who have not been there though you have, I am utterly amazed at your wisdom." When Battus and his men heard this, they sailed back home; for the god would not release them from the colony until they had reached Libya itself.

3Coming to the island and taking up the man they had left behind, they settled a place on Libya itself, opposite the island, called Aziris, which lovely glens enclose on either side and a river flows along on one hand.

Chapter 158

1This place they lived in for six years; but in the seventh year the Libyans persuaded them, promising to lead them to a better country, and they were won over to leave it.

2The Libyans led them away from there, guiding them westward; and so that the Greeks should not see the loveliest part of the country as they passed through, they calculated the hour of the day and led them past by night. The name of that country is Irasa.

3Bringing them to a spring said to be Apollo's, they said: "Men of Greece, here it is fitting for you to live; for here the sky is pierced."

Chapter 159

1In the lifetime of Battus the founder, who reigned forty years, and of his son Arcesilaus, who reigned sixteen, the Cyrenaeans remained as many in number as those who had first been sent out to the colony.

2But in the reign of the third, Battus called the Blessed, the Pythia urged all Greeks to sail and settle with the Cyrenaeans in Libya; for the Cyrenaeans were calling for a division of the land.

3And the oracle she gave ran as follows: "Whoever comes to lovely Libya after the land has been divided will one day, I tell you, regret it."

4When a great multitude had gathered at Cyrene, the neighboring Libyans and their king, whose name was Adicran, being cut off from much of their land and repeatedly insulted by the Cyrenaeans, sent to Egypt and gave themselves up to Apries the king of Egypt.

5Apries mustered a great army of Egyptians and sent it against Cyrene. The Cyrenaeans marched out to the place called Irasa and the spring Theste, joined battle with the Egyptians, and won the battle.

6For the Egyptians, having had no experience of Greeks before and despising them, were so utterly destroyed that only a few of them made their way back to Egypt. For this the Egyptians blamed Apries, and revolted from him.

Chapter 160

1A son was born to this Battus, Arcesilaus. When he came to the throne, he first quarreled with his own brothers, until they left him and went off to another part of Libya and, striking out on their own, founded the city which was called then and is called now Barce; and in founding it they won the Libyans over from the Cyrenaeans.

2After this Arcesilaus marched against those of the Libyans who had received his brothers and then revolted along with them; and the Libyans, fearing him, fled away to the eastern Libyans.

3Arcesilaus followed them as they fled, until he came pursuing them to Leucon in Libya, and the Libyans resolved to fall upon him. They joined battle and defeated the Cyrenaeans so utterly that seven thousand hoplites of the Cyrenaeans fell there.

4After this defeat, Arcesilaus, being sick and having drunk a drug, was strangled by his brother Haliarchus; and Haliarchus was slain by treachery by Arcesilaus' wife, whose name was Eryxo.

Chapter 161

1Battus, the son of Arcesilaus, a cripple and not sound of foot, succeeded to the kingdom. The Cyrenaeans, in the face of the disaster that had befallen them, sent to Delphi to ask in what way they might order their state and so live best.

2The Pythia bade them bring a man from Mantineia in Arcadia to set their affairs in order. The Cyrenaeans asked, and the Mantineians gave them the most esteemed of their citizens, whose name was Demonax.

3When this man came to Cyrene and learned the whole state of things, first he made them into three tribes, arranging them thus: of the Therans and their neighbors he made one portion, of the Peloponnesians and Cretans another, and of all the islanders a third. Then, setting apart domains and priesthoods for King Battus, he put everything else that the kings had held before at the disposal of the people.

Chapter 162

1So long as this Battus lived, matters continued in this state; but under his son Arcesilaus great strife arose over the honors and privileges.

2For Arcesilaus son of Battus the Cripple and of Pheretime refused to abide by the order that Demonax of Mantineia had established, but demanded back the prerogatives of his ancestors. In the strife that followed he was worsted, and fled to Samos, while his mother fled to Salamis in Cyprus.

3At that time Evagoras held power in Salamis; he was the one who dedicated the censer at Delphi, a thing well worth seeing, which lies in the treasury of the Corinthians. Coming to him, Pheretime asked for an army to bring them back to Cyrene.

4But Evagoras gave her anything rather than an army; and she, taking whatever he gave, said that this too was fine, but finer still would be to give her, in her need, an army.

5This she said at every gift he gave; and at the last Evagoras sent her a gift of a golden spindle and distaff, with wool besides. When Pheretime again spoke the same word, Evagoras said that such were the gifts to give to women, not armies.

Chapter 163

1Meanwhile Arcesilaus, being in Samos at this time, was gathering every man he could with promises of a division of the land; and when a great army had been collected, Arcesilaus went to Delphi to consult the oracle about his return home.

2The Pythia gave him this answer:

3"Loxias grants you to be kings of Cyrene—four Battus and four Arcesilaus, eight generations of men; but he counsels you not even to try for more than this. And do you, when you have come home, keep quiet. If you find the kiln full of jars, do not fire the jars but send them away with the wind behind them; but if you fire the kiln, do not enter the land girt round with water; if you do, you will die, both you and the fairest bull." This is what the Pythia said to Arcesilaus.

Chapter 164

1Taking with him the men from Samos he came down to Cyrene; and once he had the mastery of the state he forgot the oracle, but called his opponents to account for his exile.

2Some of them left the country altogether; others Arcesilaus overpowered and sent away to Cyprus to be destroyed. These were driven to the coast of the Cnidians, who rescued them and sent them to Thera; but others of the Cyrenaeans, who had taken refuge in a great private tower of Aglomachus, Arcesilaus piled wood around and burned.

3When the deed was done he learned what the oracle meant—that the Pythia had not allowed him, on finding the jars in the kiln, to fire them—he kept away of his own accord from the city of the Cyrenaeans, fearing the death foretold and believing that Cyrene was the land girt round with water.

4He had a wife who was his own kinswoman, the daughter of the king of the Barcaeans, whose name was Alazir. To this man he came; and Barcaean men and some of the exiles from Cyrene, noticing him as he walked in the marketplace, killed him, and with him his father-in-law Alazir. So Arcesilaus, whether willingly or against his will, missing the meaning of the oracle, fulfilled the fate that was his own.

Chapter 165

1His mother Pheretime, so long as Arcesilaus stayed at Barce, having worked his own ruin, held her son's prerogatives at Cyrene, enjoying all his other rights and sitting in the council.

2But when she learned that her son was dead at Barce, she fled away to Egypt. For services had been done by Arcesilaus to Cambyses son of Cyrus: this was the Arcesilaus who gave Cyrene to Cambyses and set a tribute upon it.

3Coming to Egypt, Pheretime sat as a suppliant before Aryandes, bidding him avenge her, and putting forward as her plea that her son had died because he had sided with the Medes.

Chapter 166

1This Aryandes was the viceroy of Egypt, appointed by Cambyses, who in later times was destroyed for putting himself on a level with Darius. For when he learned and saw that Darius wished to leave behind a memorial of himself such as no other king had wrought, he imitated Darius, until he received his reward.

2Darius refined gold to the purest possible and struck it into coinage; and Aryandes, being governor of Egypt, did the same with silver—and to this day the Aryandic silver is the purest there is. When Darius learned what he was doing, he brought another charge against him, that he was raising a rebellion, and put him to death.

Chapter 167

1This Aryandes, then, taking pity on Pheretime, gave her the whole army from Egypt, both the infantry and the navy; and he appointed as general of the infantry Amasis, a Maraphian, and of the fleet Badres, a Persian of the Pasargadae.

2Before sending out the army, Aryandes sent a herald to Barce to inquire who it was that had killed Arcesilaus. The Barcaeans, one and all, took the blame upon themselves, saying that they had suffered many and grievous things at his hands. Learning this, Aryandes then sent off the army, together with Pheretime.

3This, then, was the excuse put forward for the expedition; but the army was sent out, as I believe, for the subjugation of Libya. For the Libyan tribes are many and various, and though a few of them were the king's subjects, most paid no heed to Darius.

Chapter 168

1The Libyans live as follows. Beginning from Egypt, the first of the Libyans who are settled there are the Adyrmachidae, who for the most part follow Egyptian customs, but wear the dress that the other Libyans wear. Their women wear a bronze anklet on each leg; and they let their hair grow long, and whenever each catches a louse of her own, she bites it and so throws it away.

2These alone of the Libyans do this, and they alone show the king the maidens who are about to marry; and whichever of them pleases the king is deflowered by him. These Adyrmachidae reach from Egypt as far as the harbor called Plynus.

Chapter 169

1Next to them are the Giligamae, who hold the country to the west as far as the island of Aphrodisias. In the country between lie the island of Platea, which the Cyrenaeans colonized, and on the mainland the harbor of Menelaus and Aziris, where the Cyrenaeans lived; and the silphium begins at this point.

2The silphium stretches from the island of Platea as far as the mouth of the Syrtis. These people use customs similar to those of the others.

Chapter 170

1West of the Giligamae are the Asbystae. These live above Cyrene. The Asbystae do not reach down to the sea, for the coast is held by the Cyrenaeans. They are the greatest of all Libyans at driving four-horse chariots, and they make it their practice to imitate most of the customs of the Cyrenaeans.

Chapter 171

1West of the Asbystae are the Auschisae; these live above Barce, reaching down to the sea at Euesperides. Inland from the Auschisae, in the middle of their country, live the Bacales, a small people, who reach down to the sea at the city of Tauchira in the Barcaean land; and they use the same customs as those who live above Cyrene.

Chapter 172

1West of these Auschisae are the Nasamones, a numerous people, who leave their flocks by the sea in summer and go up to the region of Augila to gather the fruit of the palms. These grow there in great numbers and widely spread, and all of them bear fruit. Locusts, when they have caught them, they dry in the sun and pound, and then sprinkle the powder on milk and drink it.

2Holding that each man should have many wives, they mate in common in a fashion much like that of the Massagetae: when a staff has been set up, they have intercourse. When a Nasamonian man marries for the first time, it is the custom for the bride on the first night to pass through all the guests and lie with each of them; and as each man has lain with her, he gives her a gift, whatever he has brought with him from home.

3Their oaths and their divination are of this sort: they swear by the men who are said to have been the most just and the best among them, touching their tombs as they swear; and they divine by going to the graves of their ancestors, and after praying they lie down to sleep there, and whatever he sees in his dream, that he uses as the answer.

4Such pledges as these they use: one gives the other to drink from his hand, and himself drinks in turn from the hand of the other. And if they have nothing liquid, they take dust from the ground and lick it.

Chapter 173

1Bordering on the Nasamones are the Psylli. These perished in the following way: the south wind blew and dried up the basins of their water, and all their country, which lies inside the Syrtis, was without water. They took counsel together and marched against the south wind (and I tell the tale as the Libyans tell it), and when they came into the sand, the south wind blew and buried them. When these had perished, the Nasamones took possession of their country.

Chapter 174

1Inland from these, toward the south wind, in the wild-beast country, live the Garamantes, who shun all men and everyone's company, and possess no weapon of war, nor know how to defend themselves.

Chapter 175

1These then live inland above the Nasamones; along the sea to the west are held by the Macae, who clip their heads in ridges, letting the middle of the hair grow but clipping both sides close to the skin; and for war they wear the skins of ostriches as coverings.

2Through their country the river Cinyps flows, from a hill called the Hill of the Graces, and empties into the sea. This hill of the Graces is thick with trees, whereas the rest of the Libyan land I have spoken of is bare; and from the sea up to it is a distance of two hundred stades.

Chapter 176

1Next to these Macae are the Gindanes, whose women wear many anklets of hide apiece, for a reason such as this, as the story goes: for every man with whom a woman has lain she binds on an anklet; and the woman who has the most of them is judged the best, as having been loved by the greatest number of men.

Chapter 177

1On a headland that juts out into the sea, beyond these Gindanes, dwell the Lotophagi, who live by eating the fruit of the lotus alone. The fruit of the lotus is as big as that of the mastic tree, and in sweetness it is like the fruit of date palm. From this fruit the Lotophagi make wine as well.

Chapter 178

1Along the sea next to the Lotophagi are the Machlyes, who use the lotus too, though less than the people spoken of before, and their country reaches down to a great river called the Triton, which empties into a great lake, the Tritonis. In this lake there is an island, Phla. This island, it is said, the Lacedaemonians have an oracle bidding them colonize.

Chapter 179

1There is also this story told: that when the Argo had been built for Jason beneath Mount Pelion, he put aboard it a hecatomb and a bronze tripod besides, and sailed round the Peloponnese, wishing to reach Delphi.

2And as he sailed, when he was off Malea, a north wind caught him and carried him toward Libya; and before he sighted land he came into the shallows of lake Triton. As he was at a loss for a way out, Triton, the story goes, appeared to him and told Jason to give him the tripod, promising both to show them the passage and to send them away unharmed.

3When Jason obeyed, Triton showed them the way out through the shallows and set the tripod in his own temple, uttering an oracle over the tripod and declaring to the companions of Jason the whole prophecy: that when one of the descendants of those who sailed in the Argo carried off the tripod, then of necessity a hundred Greek cities must be founded around lake Triton. When the Libyans of that place heard this, they hid the tripod.

Chapter 180

1Next to the Machlyes are the Ausae; these and the Machlyes dwell round lake Triton, and the river Triton forms the boundary between them. The Machlyes let the hair grow at the back of the head, the Ausae at the front.

2At an annual festival of Athena their maidens divide into two companies and fight one another with stones and sticks, saying that they are fulfilling the ancestral rites of their native goddess, whom we call Athena. Those of the maidens who die of their wounds they call false maidens.

3Before they let them fight, they all together do the following: they dress up the fairest maiden of the time with a Corinthian helmet and a Greek panoply, and putting her on a chariot they drive her round the lake.

4With what arms they used to dress the maidens in days past, before the Greeks settled near them, I cannot say; but I suppose they were armed with Egyptian arms; for I hold that both the shield and the helmet came to the Greeks from Egypt.

5Athena, they say, is the daughter of Poseidon and of lake Triton, and angry with her father she gave herself to Zeus, and Zeus made her his own daughter. This is their story. They mate with the women in common, without marrying, and lie with them like cattle.

6When a woman's child is full grown, the men come together at the third month, and the child is held to be the son of whichever of the men it resembles.

Chapter 181

1These coastal nomad Libyans have now been described; inland from them is the wild-beast country of Libya, and beyond the wild-beast country a ridge of sand stretches, reaching from Egyptian Thebes to the Pillars of Heracles.

2In this ridge, at intervals of about ten days' journey, there are masses of salt in great lumps, in hills; and at the top of each hill cold and sweet water shoots up out of the middle of the salt. Around these live men on the edge of the desert, beyond the wild-beast country: first, ten days' journey from Thebes, the Ammonians, who have the temple of the Theban Zeus; for as I have said before, the image of Zeus at Thebes has the face of a ram.

3They have also another spring of water, which at dawn is warm, and grows cooler as the market fills, and at midday is quite cold;

4at that time they water their gardens; and as the day declines it gives up its cold, until the sun sets and the water becomes warm. Growing ever hotter, it draws near to boiling at midnight, and then it bubbles up; midnight passes and it cools again, until dawn. This spring is called the Spring of the Sun.

Chapter 182

1Beyond the Ammonians, at ten days' further journey along the ridge of sand, there is another hill of salt like the Ammonian, with water, and people living around it; the name of this region is Augila. To this region the Nasamones come to gather the fruit of the palms.

Chapter 183

1From Augila, at ten days' further journey, there is another hill of salt and water and many fruit-bearing palms, just as in the others; and people live there whose name is Garamantes, a very great and strong people, who heap earth on the salt and so sow their seed.

2The shortest way is to the Lotophagi: from them it is a journey of thirty days. Among them are found the cattle that feed backwards; and they feed backwards for this reason: their horns bend forward;

3for this reason they graze walking backwards, since when they move forward they cannot, their horns driving into the ground. They differ from other cattle in nothing but this, and in the thickness and toughness of their hide.

4These Garamantes hunt the cave-dwelling Ethiopians with four-horse chariots; for the cave-dwelling Ethiopians are the swiftest of foot of all men of whose speed we hear reports. They eat snakes and lizards and such crawling creatures; and their speech is like no other, for they squeak like bats.

Chapter 184

1From the Garamantes, at ten days' further journey, there is another hill of salt and water, and people living around it whose name is Atarantes, who alone of all men we know have no names; for the whole people is called Atarantes, but no name is set for any one of them.

2These curse the sun as he passes overhead, and heap upon him every shameful abuse, because he burns and wears them away, both the men themselves and their country.

3Beyond them, at ten days' further journey, there is another hill of salt and water, and people living around it. Adjoining this salt hill is a mountain called Atlas, narrow and rounded on every side; it is said to be so very high that its peaks cannot be seen, for clouds never leave them, neither in summer nor in winter. This the natives say is the pillar of the sky.

4After this mountain these men got their name; for they are called Atlantes. They are said to eat no living creature and to see no dreams.

Chapter 185

1Up to these Atlantes I am able to tell the names of the peoples who dwell along the ridge; beyond them I can no longer. The ridge runs on to the Pillars of Heracles and past them.

2In it there is a mine of salt at intervals of ten days' journey, and people living there; and the houses of all of them are built of blocks of salt. This part of Libya is without rain; for the walls could not stand, being of salt, if it rained.

3The salt there is dug out both white and purple in color. South of the ridge and inland the country of Libya is desert and without water, without wild beasts, without rain, without trees, and there is no moisture in it at all.

Chapter 186

1So it is that from Egypt to lake Triton the Libyans are nomads, eating flesh and drinking milk, and they do not taste the flesh of cows, any more than the Egyptians do, and they keep no pigs.

2The women of Cyrene, too, hold it wrong to eat cows' flesh, because of Isis in Egypt, but they keep fasts and festivals in her honor. And the women of Barca taste no swine either, besides cows.

Chapter 187

1So much for these matters. West of lake Triton the Libyans are no longer nomads, nor do they follow the same customs, nor do they deal with their children as the nomads are accustomed to do.

2For the nomad Libyans — whether all of them I cannot say exactly, but many of them do so — deal with their children as follows: when the children are four years old, they burn the veins at the top of the head with sheep's grease, and some of them the veins at the temples, so that phlegm running down from the head may not harm them for all their lives.

3And this is why, they say, they are the healthiest of men; for the Libyans are in truth the healthiest of all men we know — whether it is because of this I cannot say exactly, but healthiest they are. If a child is seized with convulsions from the burning, a remedy has been found: they sprinkle goat's urine on it and so save it. I tell the tale as the Libyans themselves tell it.

Chapter 188

1These are the sacrifices of the nomads: when they have cut the first of the victim's ear, they throw it over the house, and having done this they wring its neck. They sacrifice to the Sun and the Moon alone. To these all Libyans sacrifice, but those who live round lake Triton chiefly to Athena, and after her to Triton and Poseidon.

Chapter 189

1The Greeks took the dress and the aegis for the images of Athena from the Libyan women; for except that the dress of the Libyan women is of hide, and the tassels that hang from their aegis are not serpents but straps of leather, in all other respects the costume is the same.

2And indeed the name itself proves that the dress of the Palladia comes from Libya; for the Libyan women wear about their dress goat-skins stripped of the hair, hung with tassels and dyed with madder; and from these goat-skins the Greeks took the name of aegides.

3In my judgment the ritual cry raised at sacrifices also began here; for the Libyan women use it to excellent effect. And the Greeks learned from the Libyans to yoke four horses.

Chapter 190

1The nomads bury their dead as the Greeks do, except the Nasamones; these bury them seated, taking care, when a man gives up the ghost, to set him upright and not let him die lying on his back. Their dwellings are made of asphodel stalks woven around rushes, and they are portable. Such are the customs these people use.

Chapter 191

1West of the river Triton, next to the Ausae, are Libyans who plow the land and make it their custom to own houses, and their name is Maxyes. These let the hair grow on the right side of the head and shave the left, and they paint their bodies with red ochre. These say that they are descended from the men of Troy.

2This country, and the rest of Libya to the west, is far more full of wild beasts and far more thickly wooded than the country of the nomads.

3The eastern part of Libya, which the nomads graze, is low-lying and sandy as far as the river Triton; but west of this river the land of the plowmen is very mountainous and thickly wooded and full of wild beasts;

4for there are the very great snakes, and the lions, and the elephants, and the bears, and the asps, and the horned asses, and the dog-headed creatures, and the headless ones who have their eyes in their chests — at least so the Libyans say — and the wild men and the wild women, and besides these a great many other wild beasts, and these no fable.

Chapter 192

1In the country of the nomads there is none of these, but other creatures such as these: gazelles and antelopes and bubales and asses, not the kind with horns but others that never drink (for they do not drink at all), and oryxes, whose horns are used to make javelin shafts (the beast is as big as an ox);

2and bassaries, and hyenas, and porcupines, and wild rams, and dictyes, and jackals, and panthers, and boryes, and land crocodiles about three cubits long, most like lizards, and ostriches, and small snakes, each of which has one horn; these wild beasts are found there, and all those found elsewhere, except the deer and the wild boar; for there is no deer nor wild boar at all in Libya.

3There are three kinds of mice there: some are called two-footed, others zegeries (this is a Libyan name, and it means hills in the Greek tongue), and others echines. There are also weasels found in the silphium, very like those of Tartessus. So many wild beasts does the land of the nomad Libyans hold, as far as we were able to reach in our inquiry.

Chapter 193

1Next to the Maxyes, a Libyan people, are the Zaueces, whose women drive the chariots in war.

Chapter 194

1Next to them are the Gyzants, among whom bees make much honey, and it is said that far more is made by craftsmen. All these paint themselves with red ochre and eat monkeys, which are plentiful in their hills.

Chapter 195

1Off their coast the Carthaginians say there lies an island called Cyrauis, two hundred stades long but narrow, which can be reached on foot from the mainland, full of olive trees and vines.

2In it there is a lake, from which the maidens of the place bring up gold dust out of the mud with feathers smeared with pitch. Whether this is really so I do not know; I write what is reported. But anything may be true, since at Zacynthus I myself saw pitch brought up out of a lake and out of water.

3There are several lakes there, but the largest is seventy feet every way and two fathoms deep; into this they let down a pole with myrtle tied to its end, and so bring up pitch on the myrtle; it has the smell of asphalt, but in all else it is better than the pitch of Pieria. They pour it into a pit dug near the lake; and when they have gathered a good quantity, they then pour it from the pit into the jars.

4Whatever falls into the lake passes underground and comes out in the sea, which lies about four stades from the lake. So then the reports about the island lying off Libya are probable and true.

Chapter 196

1The Carthaginians tell this story as well: that there is a place in Libya and a people settled beyond the Pillars of Heracles; and when they come there and unload their cargo, they set it out in order along the beach, and then going aboard their ships they raise a smoke. The natives, seeing the smoke, come down to the sea, and then set out gold in place of the cargo and withdraw far back from the cargo.

2Then the Carthaginians land and look; and if the gold seems to them worth the cargo, they take it up and go away; but if it does not seem worth it, they go back aboard their ships and wait, and the others come and add more gold to what they have laid down, until they persuade them. Neither party wrongs the other.

3For the Carthaginians do not touch the gold until it equals the value of their cargo, nor do the natives touch the cargo before the Carthaginians have taken the gold.

Chapter 197

1These are the Libyans whose names we are able to give, and most of them cared nothing for the king of the Medes, either then or now.

2So much more I am able to say about this country: that four peoples inhabit it and no more, so far as we know, and two of these peoples are native and two are not; for the Libyans and the Ethiopians are native, the one living in the north of Libya and the other in the south, while the Phoenicians and the Greeks are settlers.

Chapter 198

1In my judgment Libya is not so fine a land that it can be compared with Asia or Europe, except the territory of Cinyps only; for the land has the same name as the river.

2This land is like the best land for bearing the fruit of Demeter, and it resembles the rest of Libya in nothing. It is black and well watered with springs, and it has no fear of drought, nor is it harmed by drinking too much rain; for this part of Libya is rained upon. The yield of its crops comes to the same measures as that of the land of Babylon. Good land too is that which the Euesperites hold;

3for it yields a hundredfold at its best, while the land at Cinyps yields three hundredfold.

Chapter 199

1The Cyrenaean country also, which is the highest ground in this Libya that the nomads graze, has within it three seasons that are a marvel. First the crops by the sea come ripe for reaping and gathering; and when these have been brought in, the crops in the region above the coastal lands, the middle ones, which they call the hills, come ripe for gathering;

2and when this middle crop has been gathered in, the crop on the highest ground ripens as well; so that the first crop has been drunk and eaten while the last is coming in. Thus for eight months the fruit of the season holds the Cyrenaeans. So much then for these matters.

Chapter 200

1When the Persians sent to help Pheretime came to Barca from Egypt, having been dispatched by Aryandes, they laid siege to the city, demanding the surrender of the men guilty of the murder of Arcesilaus; but since the whole people was concerned in the guilt, they did not accept these terms.

2So they besieged Barca for nine months, digging underground passages leading to the wall and making fierce assaults. The diggings were discovered by a bronze-smith with a bronze-faced shield, who contrived it thus: carrying the shield round inside the wall, he held it against the ground of the city.

3Everywhere else the bronze was silent where he held it, but over the places being dug the bronze of the shield rang. The Barcaeans then counter-dug at these points and killed the Persians who were mining. So the diggings were discovered in this way, and the Barcaeans beat back the assaults.

Chapter 201

1When much time had been spent and many had fallen on both sides, and no fewer of the Persians, Amasis the commander of the infantry contrived as follows. Learning that the Barcaeans could not be taken by force but could be taken by craft, he did this: at night he dug a wide trench and laid weak timbers over it, and on top of the timbers heaped up earth, making it level with the rest of the ground.

2At daybreak he called the Barcaeans to a parley, and they gladly listened, until they decided to come to terms. The terms they made were these: taking oath over the hidden trench, that so long as this ground remained as it was, the oath should hold good; and the Barcaeans agreed to pay the king an assessed tribute, and the Persians agreed to attempt no further change against the Barcaeans.

3After the oath, the Barcaeans, trusting in it, both came out of the city themselves and let any of the enemy who wished come inside the wall, opening all the gates. The Persians broke down the hidden bridge and ran within the wall. And they broke down the bridge they had made for this reason: that they might keep their oath intact, having sworn to the Barcaeans that the oath would hold forever so long as the ground remained as it was then; but when they broke it down, the oath no longer held good.

Chapter 202

1The chief culprits among the Barcaeans, when they had been handed over to her by the Persians, Pheretime impaled round the wall, and the women she mutilated, cutting off their breasts, and set these too round the wall.

2The rest of the Barcaeans she ordered the Persians to take as booty, except those of them who were of the house of Battus and had no share in the murder; to these Pheretime gave the city.

Chapter 203

1The rest of the Barcaeans, then, the Persians enslaved and marched away; and when they stopped before the city of the Cyrenaeans, the Cyrenaeans, seeking to avert an oracle, let them pass through the city.

2As the army passed through, Badres the commander of the fleet urged them to take the city, but Amasis the commander of the infantry would not allow it; for they had been sent, he said, against Barca alone. But when they had passed through and encamped on the hill of Zeus Lycaeus, they repented that they had not taken Cyrene, and tried to march into it a second time; but the Cyrenaeans would not permit it.

3Though no one fought them, a panic fell upon the Persians; they ran back and encamped about sixty stades away. When the army had settled there, a messenger came from Aryandes recalling them. The Persians asked the Cyrenaeans to give them provisions for the journey, and having received these they departed for Egypt.

4On the way the Libyans, for the sake of their clothing and their gear, killed those of them who straggled and fell behind, until they reached Egypt.

Chapter 204

1This Persian army went the farthest into Libya, as far as Euesperides. Those of the Barcaeans whom they had enslaved, these they brought up from Egypt to the king; and king Darius gave them a village in Bactria to settle in. They gave this village the name of Barca, and it was still inhabited in my time in the land of Bactria.

Chapter 205

1Nor did Pheretime bring her life to a good end. For as soon as she had taken vengeance on the Barcaeans and returned from Libya to Egypt, she died miserably; while still alive she swarmed with maggots—for vengeance that is far too fierce brings the jealousy of the gods upon men. Such and so great was the vengeance that Pheretime the daughter of Battus took upon the Barcaeans.

Chapter 1

1After the capture of Babylon came Darius' own march against the Scythians. Asia was then in bloom with men, and great sums of money were coming in. Darius wanted to punish the Scythians, because they had been the first to begin the wrong: they had invaded Media and had beaten in battle the men who stood against them.

2The Scythians had ruled upper Asia, as I said before, for twenty-eight years, just short of thirty. Chasing the Cimmerians, they invaded Asia, and they ended the rule of the Medes; for the Medes had ruled Asia before the Scythians arrived.

3The Scythians were away twenty-eight years, and when they came home after so long a time, they met a task no smaller than the Median one: they found an army, not a small one, standing against them. For the Scythian women, since the men were gone for a long time, had been going to their slaves.

Chapter 2

1The Scythians blind all their slaves, because of the milk they drink; they do it this way. They take bone tubes very much like flutes, push these into the joints of the mares, and blow with their mouths; other men milk while the others blow. They say they do this for the following reason: the veins of the mare swell as they are blown, and the udder is pressed down.

2When they have milked, they pour the milk into hollow wooden vessels, and setting the blind men around the vessels they shake the milk; what stands on top they draw off, and they count it the more valuable, and what stands beneath is worth less than the other. For all these reasons they blind everyone the Scythians capture. For the Scythians are not farmers but nomads.

Chapter 3

1A young generation grew up for them out of these slaves and the women. When these learned how they had been born, they stood against the Scythians when they came down out of Media.

2First they cut the land off, digging a wide trench that runs from the Tauric mountains to the Maeetian lake, where it is widest. Then, when the Scythians tried to break in, they took their stand against them and fought.

3Battle was joined many times, and they could gain no advantage over the Scythians in battle. Then one of them said: "What are we doing, men of Scythia? Fighting against our own slaves, we kill and are killed, and we become fewer; and if we kill them, we shall rule over fewer from now on."

4"Now this seems best to me: let us put down spears and bows, and let each man take his horse's whip and go right at them. For as long as they saw us holding weapons, they thought they were like us and born of the same kind of people; but when they see us holding whips instead of weapons, they will learn that they are our slaves, and when they understand this, they will not stand."

Chapter 4

1The Scythians heard this and did as he advised. The slaves were so startled by what was happening that they forgot to fight and ran. So the Scythians had ruled Asia, and being driven out again by the Medes, they came home in this way. Because of this, Darius, wanting to punish them, gathered an army against them.

Chapter 5

1This is what the Scythians say: that they are the youngest of all peoples, and that this is how they came to be. The first man born in this land, which was then empty, was named Targitaus. They say the parents of this Targitaus were — I do not believe what they say, but they say it — Zeus and the daughter of the river Borysthenes.

2Targitaus was born of such a stock; and this Targitaus had three sons: Lipoxais and Arpoxais, and the youngest, Colaxais.

3While these were ruling, golden objects fell from the sky onto the Scythian land: a plow, a yoke, a battle-axe, and a bowl. The oldest saw them first and went toward them, wanting to take them; but as he came near, the gold began to burn.

4When he had drawn back, the second brother came up, and again it did the same. So the burning gold drove the two away; but when the third, the youngest, came up, it went out, and he carried it to his own home. And the older brothers, understanding this, handed the whole kingship to the youngest.

Chapter 6

1From Lipoxais, they say, came the Scythians called the Auchatae; from the middle brother, Arpoxais, those called the Catiari and the Traspians; from the youngest of them, the king, those called the Paralatae.

2The name of all of them together is Scoloti, taken from the name of the king. But the Greeks named them Scythians.

Chapter 7

1So the Scythians say they came into being; and they say that from the first king Targitaus down to the crossing of Darius against them, the whole time since they came into being is a thousand years, no more, but just that many. The kings guard this sacred gold with the greatest care, and every year they appease it with great sacrifices.

2Whoever falls asleep in the open at the festival while holding the sacred gold — the Scythians say this man will not live out the year. For this reason he is given as much land as he can ride around on a horse in a single day. Since the land is large, Colaxais set up three kingdoms for his sons, and made one of them the largest, and the gold is kept in that one.

3About what lies farther up toward the north wind, they say that the people who live beyond the land cannot see or pass any farther, because of the feathers spread all around. For there are many feathers, both on the ground and in the air, and these shut off the sight.

Chapter 8

1This is what the Scythians say about themselves and about the land that lies farther up. The Greeks who live by the Pontus say this: Heracles, driving the cattle of Geryon, came into this land when it was empty, the land the Scythians now live in.

2Geryon, they say, lived outside the Pontus, on the island which the Greeks call Erytheia, near Gadeira, outside the Pillars of Heracles, on the Ocean. In story they say the Ocean, beginning at the place where the sun rises, flows around the whole earth; but they do not prove it in fact.

3From there Heracles came into the land that is now called Scythia. Winter and frost caught him; so he wrapped himself in his lion skin and fell asleep, and while he slept his horses, which were grazing under the chariot, vanished by a divine chance.

Chapter 9

1When he woke, he searched, and after going over the whole land he came at last to the land called Hylaea. There he found in a cave a creature part maiden and part viper, of double form: from the buttocks up she was a woman, and below she was a snake.

2He saw her and was amazed, and asked her whether she had seen his wandering horses anywhere. She said she had them herself, and would not give them back to him before he lay with her. Heracles lay with her for this reward.

3She put off returning the horses, wanting to be with Heracles as long as she could, and he, having taken his horses, wanted to be gone. At last she gave them back and said: "These horses came here, and I saved them for you; you have paid me for saving them; for I have three sons by you."

4"When they have grown up, you tell me what I must do with them: whether I settle them here — for I hold the rule of this land — or whether I send them away to you." She asked this, and they say he answered:

5"When you see the boys grown to men, do this and you will not go wrong. Whichever of them you see bending this bow like this and buckling on this belt in this way, make him a settler of this land. Whichever falls short of the deeds I command, send him out of the land. If you do this, you will please yourself, and you will do what I have ordered."

Chapter 10

1He drew one of the two bows — for up to that time Heracles carried two — and took the belt. At the very end of the agreement he handed over the bow and the belt, gave also a golden bowl, and went away. When the sons she had borne grew to men, she gave them names: Agathyrsus the eldest of them, Gelonus the next, and Scythes the youngest; and remembering the instructions, she did what had been ordered.

2Two of the sons, Agathyrsus and Gelonus, grew up unable to come up to the task set before them, and their mother drove them out of the land; but Scythes, the youngest of them, completed the task and stayed in the land.

3From Scythes, the son of Heracles, came the kings who have always ruled the Scythians; and because of the bowl, the Scythians carry bowls on their belts even to this day. This was the one device his mother contrived for Scythes. This is what the Greeks who live by the Pontus say.

Chapter 11

1There is also another story, told this way, and it is the one I myself most believe: the Scythians, the nomads living in Asia, hard pressed in war by the Massagetae, went away, crossed the river Araxes, and came into the Cimmerian land (the land the Scythians now live in is said to have been of old the land of the Cimmerians),

2and the Cimmerians, when the Scythians were coming, took counsel, since a great army was coming against them; and their opinions were split, both of them forceful, but the kings' the better. The opinion of the common people was that they should go away, since there was no need to stay and risk their lives for a handful of ash; the opinion of the kings was to fight it out for the land against the men who were coming.

3Neither would the people obey the kings, nor would the kings obey the people. The people thought to go away without a fight and give the land to the men coming in. The kings thought it best to fall dead in their own land and not flee with the people, having weighed the good things they had enjoyed, and how many evils they could expect to meet if they fled from their homeland.

4Once this seemed best to them, they split into two equal numbers and fought each other. The people buried all who had died by one another's hands by the river Tyras — their grave is still to be seen — and after burying them this way they left the land. The Scythians came and took the land empty.

Chapter 12

1Even now in Scythia there are Cimmerian walls, and Cimmerian ferry places, and a land named Cimmeria, and a strait called the Cimmerian Bosporus.

2The Cimmerians are seen to have fled to Asia from the Scythians, and to have founded the peninsula on which the Greek city of Sinope now stands. The Scythians too are plain to see: they chased the Cimmerians, and they broke into the land of Media, having missed the road.

3For the Cimmerians always fled along the sea, while the Scythians, keeping the Caucasus on their right, chased them until they broke into the land of Media, having been turned from their road into the middle of the country. This is the other story told in common by Greeks and foreigners.

Chapter 13

1Aristeas, son of Caystrobius, a man of Proconnesus who made poems, said that, filled with the light of Phoebus, he came to the Issedones; that beyond the Issedones live the Arimaspi, men with one eye; beyond these the griffins that guard the gold; and beyond these the Hyperboreans, whose land reaches down to the sea.

2All of these peoples, except the Hyperboreans, beginning with the Arimaspi, kept attacking the peoples living next to them. The Issedones were pushed out of their land by the Arimaspi, the Scythians by the Issedones, and the Cimmerians, who lived by the southern sea, left their land under the pressure of the Scythians. So even this man does not agree with the Scythians about this land.

Chapter 14

1I have told where this Aristeas, who said these things, came from. I will tell the story about him that I heard in Proconnesus and Cyzicus. They say that Aristeas, who was of birth no lower than any of the citizens, went into a fuller's shop in Proconnesus and died there, and that the fuller shut up the workshop and went away to tell the dead man's relatives.

2By the time the news had spread through the city that Aristeas was dead, a man of Cyzicus who had come from the city of Artace arrived and disputed with those who said it: he said he had met him on the way to Cyzicus and had come into talk with him. While he argued hard, the dead man's relatives came to the fuller's shop with what was needed, meaning to take up the body.

3When the building was opened, Aristeas was seen to be neither dead nor alive. In the seventh year after, he appeared in Proconnesus and made the poems that the Greeks now call the Arimaspea; and after making them, he vanished a second time.

Chapter 15

1Those are the things these cities tell. The following things I know happened among the Metapontines in Italy two hundred and forty years after the second vanishing of Aristeas, as I found when I compared accounts in Proconnesus and Metapontum.

2The Metapontines say that Aristeas appeared in their land and ordered them to set up an altar of Apollo, and to stand beside it a statue bearing the name of Aristeas of Proconnesus. He said that Apollo had come to their land before all the other people of Italy, and that he himself had followed him, the Aristeas that now is; and that at the time when he followed the god, he was a crow.

3After saying these things he vanished. The Metapontines say they sent to Delphi and asked the god what the apparition of the man was. The Pythia told them to obey the apparition, and said that if they obeyed, things would go better for them. They accepted this and did what was ordered.

4Even now a statue bearing the name of Aristeas stands beside the image of Apollo, and laurel trees stand around it. The image is set up in the marketplace. Let this much be said about Aristeas.

Chapter 16

1No one knows for certain what lies beyond the land about which this account began. I am not able to learn it from anyone who claims to know it by having seen it. Not even Aristeas, whom I mentioned a little before this — not even he said in his poems that he had come beyond the Issedones; he told of what lay farther up by hearsay, saying that the Issedones were the ones who said these things.

2But all that we were able to reach for certain at the farthest by hearsay will be told.

Chapter 17

1From the trading post of the Borystheneites (this is the middlemost of the seaside markets of all Scythia), the Callippidae are the first who live, being Greeks mixed with Scythians. Above them is another people called the Alazones. These and the Callippidae in other ways follow the same customs as the Scythians, but they both sow grain and eat it, and they also grow onions, garlic, lentils, and millet.

2Above the Alazones live the Scythian farmers, who sow grain not to eat but to sell. Beyond these live the Neuri. North of the Neuri, as far as we know, the land is empty of people.

Chapter 18

1These peoples live by the river Hypanis, west of the Borysthenes. When you cross the Borysthenes from the sea, there is first the Hylaea; above it live the Scythian farmers, whom the Greeks who live on the river Hypanis call Borysthenites; but they themselves call themselves Olbiopolites.

2These Scythian farmers live three days' journey toward the east, reaching down to the river named Panticapes, and toward the north wind eleven days' journey up the Borysthenes. Beyond them the empty land already stretches a long way.

3After the empty land live the Androphagi, a people quite their own and in no way Scythian. Beyond them is land truly empty, and not one people, as far as we know.

Chapter 19

1East of these Scythian farmers, across the river Panticapes, the nomad Scythians live; they sow nothing and plow nothing. This whole land is bare of trees except the Hylaea. These nomads live toward the east a journey of fourteen days, a stretch of land reaching to the river Gerrhos.

Chapter 20

1Beyond the Gerrhos are those parts called the Royal lands, and the Scythians there are the best and the most numerous, and they hold the other Scythians to be their slaves. Their land reaches toward the south to the Tauric land, and toward the east to the trench that the men born from the blind slaves dug, and to the trading post called Cremni on the Maeetian lake; and part of it reaches to the river Tanais.

2North of the Royal Scythians live the Melanchlaeni, another people and not Scythian. Beyond the Melanchlaeni, as far as we know, are lakes and empty land without people.

Chapter 21

1When you cross the river Tanais, it is Scythia no more. The first of the districts belongs to the Sauromatae; beginning from the innermost corner of the Maeetian lake, they live toward the north wind a journey of fifteen days, all of it bare of trees, both wild and cultivated. Above them, holding the second district, live the Budini, whose land is all thick with forest of every kind.

Chapter 22

1Beyond the Budini, toward the north, there is first a desert, seven days' journey across. After the desert, in the land that turns more toward the southeast wind, live the Thyssagetae, a numerous people, and a people apart. They live by hunting.

2Adjoining these, and living in those same regions, are the people called the Iyrcae. They too live by hunting, in this way: a hunter climbs a tree and waits in ambush, for the trees stand thick all over the country. Each man has a horse trained to lie flat on its belly, so that it will be low to the ground, and a dog kept ready. When he sees an animal from the tree, he shoots it with his bow, jumps on the horse and gives chase, and the dog holds the animal.

3Beyond these, in the land that slopes toward the east, other Scythians live. They broke away from the Royal Scythians, and in this way they came to this region.

Chapter 23

1As far as the country of these Scythians, all the land described is flat and deep in soil; beyond this point it is stony and rough.

2When you have gone through a great part of this rough country, you come to people who live at the foot of high mountains. They are said all to be bald from birth, men and women alike. They have snub noses and large beards. They speak their own language, they dress in Scythian clothes, and they live from trees.

3The tree they live from is called the pontic tree, and it is about the size of a fig tree. It bears a fruit like a bean, and it has a pit inside. When the fruit ripens, they squeeze it through cloths, and a thick, black juice flows out of it. The juice is called aschy. They lick this juice, and they drink it mixed with milk. From its thick dregs they press solid cakes, and they eat those.

4They do not have many sheep, because the pastures there are not good. Each man lives under a tree. In winter he covers the tree with thick white felt; in summer he uses no felt.

5No one among men does wrong to these people, for they are said to be sacred. They keep no weapon of war at all. They are the ones who settle the quarrels of the people around them. And any man who flees and takes refuge with them is harmed by no one. Their name is the Argippaei.

Chapter 24

1The country and the peoples up to these bald men are very well known. Some Scythians even come to them, and from those Scythians it is not hard to find out about them, even for the Greeks, both those from the trading post of Borysthenes and those from the other trading posts on the Pontus. The Scythians who go to them do their business through seven interpreters and seven languages.

Chapter 25

1The land is known this far. But no one can say with certainty what lies beyond the bald people. High mountains cut off the way, impassable, and no one crosses them. These bald men say, though I do not believe what they say, that goat-footed men live in the mountains, and that beyond them are other men who sleep for six months of the year. This part I do not accept at all,

2but the east side of the bald people's country is known for certain to be inhabited by the Issedones, while the part beyond it, toward the north wind, is known neither to the bald people nor to the Issedones, except for what these very people themselves say about it.

Chapter 26

1The Issedones are said to use these customs. When a man's father dies, all his relatives bring sheep. They sacrifice them and cut up the meat, and they also cut up the dead father of the man who receives them. Mixing all the meat together, they set out a feast;

2they strip the flesh from his head and clean it, and cover it with gold. After that they treat it as a sacred image, and they perform great yearly sacrifices to it. A son does this for his father, as the Greeks do at their yearly festival for the dead. These people are also said to be just in other ways, and their women have authority equal to the men.

Chapter 27

1These people too are known. But the Issedones are the ones who say that beyond them there are one-eyed men, and griffins that guard the gold. The Scythians took the story from the Issedones and repeat it, and we others took it from the Scythians and call them Arimaspians in the Scythian language. For the Scythians call one "arima," and an eye "spou."

Chapter 28

1This whole country described is so hard in winter that for eight of the months the cold there is unbearable. If you pour water on the ground in that season, you will make no mud; but if you build a fire, you will make mud. The sea freezes, and so does the whole Cimmerian Bosporus. The Scythians who live inside the trench make war on the ice, and they drive their wagons across it to the Sindians.

2Winter lasts like this for eight months straight, and in the remaining four months it is still cold there. This winter differs in its ways from all the winters that happen in other places: in spring its rain is not worth mentioning at all, and in summer, when it rains, it does not let up;

3thunder comes in one season and not in the other: at that time there is none, but in summer it crashes loudly. If thunder happens in winter, custom holds that it must be wondered at as a portent. The same holds if an earthquake happens in Scythia, in summer or in winter: it is counted a portent.

4Horses can endure this winter, but mules and donkeys cannot bear it at all. In the other season it is the reverse: horses standing in the cold get frostbitten, while donkeys and mules endure it.

Chapter 29

1It seems to me that for this reason the breed of hornless cattle there does not grow horns. My opinion is supported also by Homer's verse in the Odyssey, which runs like this: "and Libya, where the rams quickly grow their horns." That is rightly said: in hot countries the horns come quickly, and in the strong colds the cattle either grow no horns at all, or grow them only with difficulty.

Chapter 30

1Here, then, the cold brings these things about. I marvel at this (for from the beginning my account has been seeking additions): that in the whole land of Elis mules cannot be born, although the country is not cold and there is no other visible cause. The Eleans themselves say that mules are not born to them because of a curse,

2but when the season comes for the mares to be bred, they drive the mares out to the neighboring countries, and then they set the donkeys of the neighboring people with them, until the mares are in foal; after that they drive the donkeys away.

Chapter 31

1About the feathers of which the Scythians say the air is full, and because of which they can neither see far into the land nor travel through it, this is my opinion: in the parts of this country beyond them it always snows, less in summer than in winter, as is fitting.

2Anyone who has seen heavy snow falling close at hand knows what I mean. Snow looks like feathers. Because of this kind of winter, the parts toward the north of this continent are uninhabitable. So I think the Scythians and the people around them compare the snow to feathers when they speak of feathers. This, then, is as far as the stories told reach.

Chapter 32

1About the Hyperborean people, the Scythians say nothing, nor do any of the others who live in this region, unless perhaps the Issedones. In my opinion, not even the Issedones say anything; for the Scythians would say it too, as they do about the one-eyed men. But there are things said about the Hyperboreans by Hesiod, and there are things by Homer too, in the Epigoni, if Homer really did compose those verses.

Chapter 33

1The Delians say much the most about them. They say that sacred offerings, tied up in wheat straw, are carried from the Hyperboreans and come to the Scythians, and that from the Scythians each neighboring people in turn receives them and carries them ever farther west, until they come to the Adriatic,

2and that from there they are sent south, and the Dodonaeans, first of the Greeks, receive them. From the Dodonaeans they come down to the Malian Gulf and are carried across to Euboea. They are sent from city to city as far as Carystus. From Carystus the route leaves out Andros: the Carystians carry them to Tenos, and the Tenians carry them to Delos.

3They say that in this way the sacred offerings come to Delos. But the first time, the Hyperboreans sent two girls to carry the offerings, whom the Delians name Hyperoche and Laodice. And along with the girls, for their safety, the Hyperboreans sent five men from among their citizens as guides. These are the men who even now are called Perpherees, and they hold great honors in Delos.

4But the Hyperboreans found that the people they sent away did not come home again. They thought it a hard thing that they should always be sending and never get them back. So from then on they carry the sacred offerings, tied up in wheat straw, to their own borders, and they charge the neighboring people to send them on from themselves to another nation.

5The offerings, they say, sent on in this way, come to Delos. And I myself know this much is done with these offerings: the Thracian and Paeonian women, when they sacrifice to Artemis the Queen, carry the offerings with wheat straw, and never without it.

Chapter 34

1These things I know the Thracian and Paeonian women do. But for the two maidens from the Hyperboreans who died in Delos, both the girls and the boys of the Delians cut their hair. The girls cut off a lock before marriage, wind it around a spindle, and lay it on the tomb

2(the tomb is inside the Artemision, on the left hand as you go in, and an olive tree has grown over it). All the boys of the Delians wind some of their hair around a blade of grass and lay it on the tomb too.

Chapter 35

1These two have this honor from the people who live in Delos. These same people say that Arge and Opis, two maidens from the Hyperboreans, came to Delos even earlier than Hyperoche and Laodice, traveling with these same men.

2These two, they say, came bringing to Eileithyia the tribute that their people had appointed in place of the swift delivery of children; but Arge and Opis, they say, came together with the gods themselves, and other honors have been given to them by the Delians;

3For the Delian women gather in choirs and name them in the hymn, which Olen, a Lycian man, made for them; and the islanders and the Ionians learned it from them and sing it, naming Opis and Arge and gathering in choirs. (This Olen came from Lycia and made the other old hymns that are sung in Delos,)

4and they gather while the thighs are burned down on the altar, and this ash is thrown upon the tomb of Opis and Arge, used as a thing of ill omen. The tomb of the two is behind the Artemision, facing east, very near the Ceians' banquet hall.

Chapter 36

1So much, then, be said about the Hyperboreans. I do not tell the story of Abaris, the man said to be a Hyperborean, who carried his arrow around over every land, taking no food at all. If there are any Hyperborean men, there are also others beyond the south.

2I laugh at the many men who have now drawn maps of the world, and not one of whom explains the matter with any sense. They draw Ocean as a stream flowing around the earth, which they make round like a circle from a lathe, and they make Asia equal to Europe. In a few words I will show how big each of them is, and what each is like when drawn.

Chapter 37

1The Persians live stretching down to the southern sea, the one called the Red Sea. Above them, toward the north wind, live the Medes. Above the Medes live the Saspires, and above the Saspires the Colchians, stretching down to the northern sea, into which the river Phasis empties. These four nations live from sea to sea.

Chapter 38

1From there, two peninsulas stretch westward from this land into the sea, and I will describe them:

2One of the two, the one running toward the north, begins from the Phasis and stretches out to sea along the Pontus and the Hellespont as far as Sigeum in the Troad. Toward the south, this same peninsula runs from the Myriandic Gulf, which lies by Phoenicia, out to sea as far as the Triopion headland. Thirty nations of men live in this peninsula.

Chapter 39

1That is one of the two peninsulas. The other begins from the Persians and stretches to the Red Sea: the Persian Sea first, then Assyria after it, then Arabia after Assyria. This one comes to an end at the Arabian Gulf, into which Darius brought a canal from the Nile, though it ends only by custom and not in fact.

2From the Persians to Phoenicia there is a broad and great stretch of land. But from Phoenicia this peninsula runs along this sea, past Syria called Palestine and past Egypt, and there it ends. In it there are only three nations.

Chapter 40

1These are the parts of Asia that lie to the west, starting from the Persians. But the parts beyond the Persians and the Medes, the Saspires and the Colchians, the parts toward the east and the rising sun, are bounded on one side by the Red Sea, and toward the north by the Caspian Sea and the river Araxes, which flows toward the sunrise.

2Asia is inhabited as far as India. From there, toward the east, the land is desert, and no one can say for sure what it is like.

Chapter 41

1Such, and of such a size, is Asia. Libya lies in the other peninsula, for it starts from Egypt. At Egypt this peninsula is narrow: from this sea to the Red Sea there are a hundred thousand fathoms, and that is a thousand stades. Beyond this narrow place, the peninsula called Libya turns out to be very wide.

Chapter 42

1I wonder, then, at the men who divided and marked off Libya, Asia, and Europe; for the differences between them are not small. In length Europe stretches beside both of them, and in breadth it seems to me not even worth comparing to them.

2For Libya shows itself to be surrounded by water, except the part of it that borders on Asia. Necos, the king of the Egyptians, was the first we know of who accepted this. He had been digging a canal that runs from the Nile to the Arabian Gulf; when he stopped digging it, he sent out Phoenician men in ships, with orders to sail back through the Pillars of Heracles until they came to the northern sea, and so return to Egypt.

3So the Phoenicians set out from the Red Sea and sailed the southern sea. Whenever autumn came, they would land and sow the ground, wherever along the coast of Libya they happened to be on their voyage, and they waited for the harvest;

4then, when they had cut the grain, they sailed on. In this way, after two years had gone by, in the third year they rounded the Pillars of Heracles and came to Egypt. They told a story that I do not believe, though others might: that as they sailed around Libya, they had the sun on their right.

Chapter 43

1So Libya was first learned about in this way. After that, the Carthaginians are the ones who tell about it. For Sataspes, son of Teaspes, an Achaemenid, did not sail around Libya, although he was sent for that very purpose. Fearing the length of the voyage and the desert, he turned back, and he did not finish the task his mother had set him.

2For he had forced the virgin daughter of Zopyrus, son of Megabyzus. When he was about to be impaled for this act by King Xerxes, Sataspes' mother, who was the sister of Darius, begged him off. She said she would lay on him a heavier penalty than that:

3that he must sail around Libya until, sailing around it, he came to the Arabian Gulf. Xerxes agreed to this. Sataspes went to Egypt, took a ship and sailors from the Egyptians there, and sailed toward the Pillars of Heracles.

4He sailed through the strait and rounded the headland of Libya whose name is Soloeis, and he sailed south. After crossing a great stretch of sea over many months, and finding that the voyage always required more, he turned around and sailed back to Egypt.

5From there he came to King Xerxes and said that at the farthest point of his voyage he had sailed past small men, wearing clothes made of palm leaves. Whenever the ship put in to land, these people fled to the mountains, leaving their towns behind. His crew, he said, did no wrong when they entered the towns; they took only food from the people.

6He said this was the reason he had not sailed all the way around Libya: that the ship could no longer go forward, but was held back. But Xerxes did not believe that he spoke the truth. And because Sataspes had not completed the task set for him, Xerxes impaled him, carrying out the original sentence.

7The eunuch of this Sataspes fled to Samos as soon as he heard that his master was dead, taking great wealth with him. A Samian man seized the money. I deliberately forget that man's name.

Chapter 44

1Darius explored most of Asia. He wanted to know where the Indus River, which is second among all rivers in producing crocodiles, empties into the sea. So he sent ships carrying men he trusted to report the truth, and also a man named Scylax of Caryanda.

2They started out from the city of Caspatyrus and the Pactyic land and sailed down the river toward the east and the sunrise, out to the sea. Then they sailed through the sea toward the west. In the thirtieth month they arrived at the place from which the king of the Egyptians, as I said earlier, sent the Phoenicians to sail around Libya.

3After these men had sailed around, Darius conquered the Indians and used this sea. In this way, most of Asia has been explored, except the parts toward the rising sun; and it shows itself to be like Libya.

Chapter 45

1Europe is not clearly known at all, neither the parts toward the rising sun nor the parts toward the north, nor whether it is surrounded by water. Its length, however, is known: it runs alongside both of the others.

2I cannot work out why the earth, being one single land, carries three names, all of them names of women; nor why its boundaries were set at the Nile, the Egyptian river, and the Phasis in Colchis—though some people say they are the Tanaïs River and the Cimmerian straits. Nor can I learn who drew these boundaries and gave the names, or where they got the names from.

3Most Greeks say Libya got its name from a native woman, and Asia its name from the wife of Prometheus. But the Lydians claim a share in the name: they say Asia was named after Asies, son of Cotys, son of Manes, and not after Prometheus' Asia; from him, they say, the tribe in Sardis was also called the Asiadae.

4As for Europe, no people know whether it is surrounded by water; nor where it got this name, nor who gave it the name—unless we say the land took its name from Europa of Tyre. Before that, it must have been nameless, like the other lands.

5But this woman plainly came from Asia, and she never came to the land that the Greeks now call Europe. She only went from Phoenicia to Crete, and from Crete to Lycia. Let this be said and no more; we will use the names that are customary.

Chapter 46

1The Euxine Sea (the Pontus), against which Darius marched, has the most ignorant peoples of all lands, apart from the Scythian race. We can name no people anywhere inside the Pontus that is known for wisdom, nor do we know of any learned man born there, apart from the Scythian nation and Anacharsis.

2The Scythian race has devised, most wisely of all men we know of, the one greatest thing in human affairs. The other things they do I do not admire. They have contrived that greatest thing so well that no one who attacks them can escape, and no one can catch them if they do not wish to be found.

3They have built no cities and no walls. They are all nomads who carry their houses with them. They are all horse-archers. They live not from plowed fields but from their herds, and their dwellings are on wagons. How could such people fail to be unconquerable and impossible to come to grips with?

Chapter 47

1They have managed all this because the land suits them and the rivers are their allies. The land is a flat plain, full of grass and well watered, and rivers flow through it—only a little fewer in number than the canals of Egypt.

2Of these rivers, I will name the famous ones that can be sailed up from the sea: the Ister, which has five mouths, then the Tyres, the Hypanis, the Borysthenes, the Panticapes, the Hypakyris, the Gerrhos, and the Tanaïs. These are the ways they flow:

Chapter 48

1The Ister is the largest of all the rivers we know. It always flows at the same level in both summer and winter. Of the rivers flowing in Scythia it is the first from the west, and it has become the largest in this way: other rivers too discharge into it.

2These are the rivers that make it great. Five flow through the land of Scythia. One of them the Scythians call Porata and the Greeks Pyretus; the others are Tiarantus, Ararus, Naparis, and Ordessus.

3The first river I named is large and flows toward the east; it shares its water with the Ister. The second named, Tiarantus, flows more toward the west and is smaller. Ararus, Naparis, and Ordessus run between these and empty into the Ister.

Chapter 49

1These native Scythian rivers fill him up. From the Agathyrsi comes the Maris River, which joins the Ister. From the peaks of Haemus three other great rivers flow toward the north wind and fall into him: Atlas, Auras, and Tibisis. Through Thrace and the Crobyzi Thracians, the rivers Athrys, Noes, and Artanes empty into the Ister. From the Paeonians and Mount Rhodope comes the Cius River, which cuts through the middle of Haemus and empties into him.

2From Illyria the Angrus River flows toward the north wind and empties into the Triballian plain and into the Brongus River; the Brongus flows into the Ister. So the Ister takes in both of these, and both are large. From the land above that of the Ombrici, the Carpis River and another river, the Alpis, also flow toward the north wind and empty into him.

3The Ister flows through the whole of Europe. It rises among the Celts, who live farthest toward the setting sun in Europe, after the Cynetae. And having flowed through all Europe, it falls into the flank of Scythia.

Chapter 50

1So the Ister, made of all the rivers just listed and many others combining their water, is the greatest of rivers. If one water were matched against one, the Nile would beat it in sheer volume. Into the Nile no river and no spring of any great amount flows in.

2The Ister always runs at the same level in summer and winter, and this, as it seems to me, is why. In winter it is just what it is, and grows a little bigger than its natural size. This land gets very little rain in winter and uses snow for everything.

3In summer the thick snow that fell in winter melts on every side and drains into the Ister. This melted snow fills him up, and along with it come many heavy rains, since it does rain in summer.

4The more water the sun draws out of the river in summer than in winter, by that much the waters feeding the Ister are many times larger in summer than in winter. These balance each other, and the result is an even balance, so that he always appears to be the same size.

Chapter 51

1The first of the Scythians' rivers is the Ister. After him comes the Tyres, which rises from the north and begins to flow from a great lake that separates the Scythian land from the Neurian land. Greeks live at his mouth; they are called the Tyritae.

Chapter 52

1Third comes the Hypanis River. He rises in Scythia and flows from a great lake around which wild white horses graze. This lake is rightly called the Mother of Hypanis.

2The Hypanis, rising from this lake, flows for a voyage of five days, shallow and sweet. After that, for the four days' voyage to the sea, it is terribly bitter.

3A bitter spring discharges into it. The spring is so bitter that, small as it is, it turns the Hypanis—a large river—bitter within a short distance. This spring lies on the border between the land of the plowman Scythians and that of the Alazones. The spring and the land it flows from share a name: in Scythian it is Exampaeus, and in the Greek language, "Sacred Ways."

4The Tyres and the Hypanis bring their banks together in the land of the Alazones. After that each turns aside and flows on, widening the space between them.

Chapter 53

1Fourth comes the Borysthenes. He is the largest of these rivers after the Ister, and by my judgment the most useful—not only of the Scythian rivers but of all rivers anywhere, except the Nile of Egypt; no other river can compare with that one.

2Of the remaining rivers, the Borysthenes is the most useful of all. He provides the finest pastures for cattle and the best tended. His fish are the best, without any salty taste, and the most plentiful. His water is the sweetest to drink, and he flows clear beside rivers that run muddy. The crops beside him are the finest. The grass grows deepest, in a land that is not sown.

3Salt forms on its own at his mouth, in endless amounts. There are great fish without backbones, which the people call Antacaei, good for salting down, and many other things worth marveling at.

4For the stretch up to the land of the Gerrhi—a voyage of forty days—it is known that he flows from the north. Above that, no one can say through what peoples he flows. He seems to flow through empty country until he comes to the land of the plowman Scythians; these Scythians live beside him for a voyage of ten days.

5I cannot state the sources of this river or of the Nile, and I think no Greek can either. Near the sea the Borysthenes flows, and the Hypanis joins him, both emptying into the same marsh.

6The strip of land between these two rivers, which juts out from the coast, is called the Cape of Hippoleos. In it a temple of Demeter is founded. Beyond the temple, on the Hypanis, live the Borysthenites.

Chapter 54

1So much for what comes from those rivers. After them comes a fifth river, named Panticapes. This one too flows from the north and from a lake. The plowman Scythians live in the land between it and the Borysthenes. The Panticapes empties into the Hylaea, and after passing it, joins the Borysthenes.

Chapter 55

1Sixth comes the Hypakyris River. He rises from a lake and flows through the middle of the land of the nomad Scythians, and empties at the city of Carcinitis, leaving the Hylaea and the place called the Racecourse of Achilles on his right.

Chapter 56

1Seventh comes the Gerrhos River. He branches off from the Borysthenes at that part of the country to which the Borysthenes is known. He breaks away from this region and takes his name from the place itself, Gerrhos. Flowing to the sea he marks the border between the land of the nomads and that of the royal Scythians, and he empties into the Hypakyris.

Chapter 57

1Eighth comes the Tanaïs River. From his beginning he flows from a great lake, and he empties into a still larger lake called Maeotis, which separates the royal Scythians from the Sauromatae. Another river falls into this Tanaïs; its name is Hyrgis.

Chapter 58

1Such, then, are the famous rivers of the Scythians. As for their cattle, the grass that grows in Scythia is the most bitter of all the grasses we know. When the cattle are cut open, it can be weighed out that this is so.

Chapter 59

1So their greatest needs are easily met in this way. Their other customs stand as follows. They worship only these gods: Hestia above all, then Zeus and Earth—they hold Earth to be the wife of Zeus—and after these, Apollo, Heavenly Aphrodite, Heracles, and Ares. All Scythians worship these. The Scythians called royal also sacrifice to Poseidon.

2In the Scythian language Hestia is called Tabiti. Zeus—most rightly, in my judgment—is called Papaeus. Earth is called Api. Apollo is Goetosyrus. Heavenly Aphrodite is Argimpasa. Poseidon is Thagimasadas. The Scythians make no images, altars, or temples, except to Ares. Him alone they do.

Chapter 60

1The same kind of sacrifice is established for all the gods alike, done this way. The victim stands with its front feet bound. The sacrificer stands behind the animal, pulls the end of the rope, and throws it down.

2As the victim falls, the sacrificer calls on the god he is sacrificing to. Then he puts a rope around its neck, slips in a stick, twists it, and strangles the animal—without lighting a fire, without cutting off a first piece, and without pouring a libation. Once he has strangled and skinned it, he turns to boiling it.

Chapter 61

1The land of Scythia is altogether treeless, and this is how they have contrived to boil meat. When they have skinned the victims, they strip the meat from the bones. Then they throw it in—if they happen to have them—into local cauldrons, most like Lesbian mixing bowls, except that they are much bigger. They throw the meat into these and boil it, burning the bones of the victims underneath. If they have no cauldron, they throw all the meat into the victims' own stomachs, mix in water, and burn the bones underneath.

2The bones burn best this way. The stomachs easily hold the meat stripped from the bones. And so an ox cooks itself, and each of the other victims in turn. When the meat is cooked, the sacrificer cuts off a first share of the meat and the entrails and throws it in front. They also sacrifice other sheep, and horses above all.

Chapter 62

1That is how they sacrifice to the other gods, with those animals. To Ares they sacrifice as follows. In each district of each government a shrine of Ares is set up. It is a pile of bundled brushwood, three stades long and three stades broad, though less in height. On top of it a square platform is made. Three of its sides are sheer; one side can be climbed.

2Each year they add a hundred and fifty wagon-loads of brushwood, because it always settles down during the winters. On top of this enclosure an ancient iron short sword is fixed for each of them; this is the image of Ares. To this sword they offer yearly sacrifices of sheep and horses, and they sacrifice more to it than to the other gods.

3Of the prisoners they take from the enemy, they sacrifice one man in every hundred—not in the same way as the sheep, but differently. They pour wine over the men's heads, slaughter the men over a vessel, then carry it up onto the pile of brushwood and pour the blood over the sword.

4They carry that up; below, beside the shrine, they do this. They cut off the right shoulders, with the hands attached, of all the slaughtered men, and throw the pieces into the air. Then, cutting off the other victims' parts, they depart. Wherever the hand falls, there it lies, and the dead body lies apart.

Chapter 63

1Such are the sacrifices they keep. These people have nothing to do with swine, and they will not raise them in their land at all.

Chapter 64

1Their customs of war stand like this. When a Scythian kills his first man, he drinks the man's blood. Every man he kills in battle, he brings the head to the king. If he brings in a head, he gets a share of the loot they take; if he does not bring one, he does not.

2He scalps it like this. He cuts in a circle around the ears, takes hold of the scalp, and shakes the skull loose. Then he strips off the flesh with a cow's rib and works the skin with his hands. When he has worked it soft, he keeps it as a hand towel, hangs it from the bridle of the horse he himself rides, and is proud of it. The man with the most scalp towels is judged the best man.

3Many of them also sew the scalps into cloaks, joining them together like furs. Many flay the right hands of dead enemies and use the nails to cover the covers of their quivers. Human skin, it seems, is thick and glossy, nearly the brightest of all skins in whiteness.

4Many flay whole men, stretch the skins over wooden frames, and carry them about on their horses.

Chapter 65

1That is how their customs stand. To the skulls themselves—not all of them, but those of their worst enemies—they do this. Each man saws off everything below the eyebrows and cleans the skull out. If he is poor, he stretches a raw ox-hide around the outside and uses it that way. If he is rich, he stretches the rawhide on, gilds the inside, and uses it as a drinking cup.

2They do this with their own kinsmen too, if they come to a quarrel, and if the one overpowers the other before the king. And when guests come whom he thinks worth talking to, he brings out these heads and tells how they were his own kin who attacked him in war, and how he defeated them. He calls this a manly deed.

Chapter 66

1Once every year the governor of each district mixes a bowl of wine in his own district. From it drink the Scythians who have killed enemy men. Those who have not done this do not taste this wine; they sit there dishonored. This is their greatest disgrace. Those who have killed very many men have two cups and drink from both at once.

Chapter 67

1The Scythians have many diviners. These divine with many willow rods, in this way. They bring in great bundles of rods, lay them on the ground, and unroll them. They lay out the rods one at a time and give prophecies. As they speak, they gather the rods up again, and then lay them out once more one by one.

2This is their ancestral divination. The Enarees, who are unmanly men, say that Aphrodite gave them their divination. They divine with strips of linden bark: they split a linden twig, weave the strips among their own fingers and loosen them, and use them that way.

Chapter 68

1When the king of the Scythians falls ill, he sends for three diviners, the men who are most successful, and they divine in the way described. Their answer usually runs like this: that such and such a man has sworn a false oath by the royal hearths, and they name one of the townspeople whom they will.

2For the Scythians, swearing by the royal hearths is the most binding oath of all, used when they want to swear the greatest oath. The man the diviners say has sworn falsely is brought in at once. When he arrives, the diviners bring their charge: their divination shows that he swore falsely by the royal hearths, and that is why the king is in pain. The man denies it, saying he has sworn no false oath, and pleads his case at length.

3When the man denies it, the king sends for other diviners, twice as many. If they too, looking into their divination, find he swore falsely, his head is cut off at once, and the first diviners divide his property among themselves.

4If the diviners who came later acquit him, other diviners are brought in, and then more again. If the greater number acquit the man, the first diviners are condemned to die.

Chapter 69

1This is how they kill them. They fill a wagon with brushwood and yoke oxen to it. They shackle the diviners' feet, tie their hands behind their backs, gag them, and throw them into the middle of the brush. Then they set it alight underneath, frighten the oxen, and let them run off.

2Many oxen burn along with the diviners. Many escape, their yoke straps burned through. They also burn diviners in this same way for other reasons, calling them false diviners.

3When the king has diviners killed, he does not spare even their children. He kills all the males, but does no wrong to the females.

Chapter 70

1The Scythians make oaths this way, with those they make them with. They pour wine into a large earthen cup and mix in blood from those cutting the oath—pricking just under the skin or cutting off a small piece of the body with a knife. Then they dip a short sword, some arrows, an axe, and a javelin into the cup. When they have done this, they call down many curses, and then they drink—both those making the oath and the most notable of the onlookers.

Chapter 71

1The tombs of the kings are in the land of the Gerrhi, at the farthest point up the Borysthenes that boats can reach. There, when their king dies, they dig a great square pit in the ground. When the pit is ready, they take up the dead man. His body has been coated in wax; his belly has been cut open, cleaned out, and filled with cut hemp, incense, celery seed, and anise, and sewn up again. They carry him in a wagon to another tribe.

2Whichever tribe receives the body when it is brought does what the royal Scythians do: they cut off a piece of ear, crop their hair, make cuts around their arms, gash their foreheads and noses, and push arrows through their left hands.

3From there they carry the dead king in the king's wagon to another of the tribes that are under their rule; they follow after the ones before. When they have made the round of all the tribes carrying the dead man, they arrive at the Gerrhi, the most remote of the subject tribes; and there the royal tombs are.

4Then, when they lay the dead man in his tomb on a bed of rushes, they fix spears on both sides of the body, stretch poles over it, and cover the top with woven twigs. In the remaining open space of the tomb they strangle one of his concubines and bury her, along with the cupbearer, the cook, the groom, the attendant, the messenger, and the horses, along with first-offerings of all his other possessions and golden bowls. They use no silver and no bronze at all.

5When all this is done, they all heap up a great mound, competing and striving to make it as big as they can.

Chapter 72

1When the year has come round again they do this. They take the most suitable of the remaining servants. These are Scythians by birth: they serve whomever the king himself orders them to. The Scythians have no servants bought with money.

2They strangle fifty of these servants and fifty of the finest horses. Then they cut out the animals' stomachs, clean them, fill them with chaff, and sew them up.

3They set up half of an arch on two wooden posts, and the other half of the arch on two more, and fix many such pairs in this way. Then they drive thick wooden stakes through the horses, the full length of the bodies, up to the necks, and lift the horses onto the arches.

4The front arches hold up the horses' shoulders, and the rear ones, by the haunches, support the bellies. Both forelegs hang down in midair. They put bridles and bits on the horses, stretch them forward, and tie them to pegs.

5Of the fifty strangled young men, they set each one on a horse. They do it this way: they drive a straight stake through each dead man along the spine up to the neck. The lower end of this stake sticks out below, and they fit it into a socket in the other stake that runs through the horse. They station such riders in a circle around the burial mound and then ride away.

Chapter 73

1That is how they bury the kings. Other Scythians, when they die, are carried around by their nearest kinsmen among their friends, lying in wagons. Each friend who receives them feasts the mourners, and sets before the dead man the same as he sets before all the rest. Private people are carried around like this for forty days and then buried.

2After they bury them, the Scythians cleanse themselves this way. They anoint their heads and wash. Then they set up three sticks leaning against one another and stretch woolen felt mats around them. They block the gaps as well as they can, and throw stones glowing red-hot from the fire into a trough set in the middle, between the sticks and the felts.

Chapter 74

1In their land grows hemp, very much like flax except in thickness and size; and in these the hemp is far better. It grows both on its own and when sown. Thracians make garments from it that are very like linen. No one who was not a very practiced handler of it could tell whether such cloth is flax or hemp. Anyone who had never seen hemp would think the garment was linen.

Chapter 75

1When the Scythians get the seed of this hemp, they crawl in under the felt mats and throw the seed onto the hot glowing stones. It smokes as it burns and gives off such a cloud of vapor that no Greek steam bath could match it.

2The Scythians howl with pleasure in the vapor bath. This serves them in place of bathing. They never wash their bodies in water at all.

3Their women pour water over pieces of cypress wood, cedar wood, and frankincense wood, and pound it all on a rough stone. Then they plaster this thick paste over their whole bodies and faces. It gives off a sweet smell. The next day, when they scrape the paste off, they are clean and glowing.

Chapter 76

1These people too are very strict about refusing to use foreign customs, both the customs of any other people and, above all, Greek ones—as Anacharsis showed, and again a second time Scyles.

2Anacharsis, after seeing much of the world and showing much wisdom during his travels, was making his way back to the ways of the Scythians. Sailing through the Hellespont he put in at Cyzicus.

3There he found the people of Cyzicus holding a festival in honor of the Mother of the Gods, carried out with great magnificence. Anacharsis made a vow to the Mother: if he got back to his own home safe and sound, he would sacrifice to her in exactly the same way the people of Cyzicus did, and would set up an all-night vigil.

4When he came to Scythia he went deep into the country called Hylaea. It lies beside the Racecourse of Achilles, and the whole of it is full of trees of every kind. In that country Anacharsis performed the entire festival for the goddess, carrying a drum and having hung small images on himself.

5One of the Scythians saw him doing all this and told King Saulius. The king came in person, and when he saw Anacharsis doing it, he shot him dead with an arrow. Even today, if anyone mentions Anacharsis, the Scythians say they do not know the man—because he traveled abroad to Hellas and used foreign customs.

6As I heard from Timnes, the guardian of Ariapeithes: Anacharsis was the uncle of Idanthyrsus, king of the Scythians, and the son of Gnurus, the son of Lycus, the son of Spargapeithes. If Anacharsis was of that house, he must know that he died at his brother's hand; for Idanthyrsus was the son of Saulius, and Saulius was the one who killed Anacharsis.

Chapter 77

1And yet I have heard another story told by the Peloponnesians: that Anacharsis was sent out into Hellas by the king of the Scythians, became a pupil there, and on his return said to the one who sent him that the Hellenes all busy themselves with every kind of learning except the Lacedaemonians, and that these alone can give an account and take one with sound sense.

2But this story was made up by the Hellenes themselves in another way; the man, as I said before, was put to death.

Chapter 78

1That is what this man suffered for foreign customs and for keeping company with the Greeks. Many years later Scyles, the son of Ariapeithes, suffered things very much like this. Scyles was one of the children born to Ariapeithes, king of the Scythians. His mother was a woman from Istria, not a native. This mother taught him the Greek language and Greek writing.

2In time, Ariapeithes died by the treachery of Spargapeithes, king of the Agathyrsi. Scyles then inherited both the kingship and his father's wife, whose name was Opoea. This Opoea was a native of the land; from her came Oricus, a son of Ariapeithes.

3Scyles, though he was king of the Scythians, was not at all pleased with the Scythian way of life. He was drawn far more to the Greek ways, because of the Greek education he had received. He did this: whenever he led the Scythian army to the city of the Borysthenites (these Borysthenites say they themselves are Milesians), when he arrived there he left the army outside in the suburb,

4and he himself, once he was inside the walls and the gates had been shut, would take off his Scythian dress and put on Greek clothing, and dressed that way he walked about the marketplace, with no guards following him and no one else. They kept watch at the gates, so that no Scythian would see him in that dress. He also lived otherwise in the Greek manner and made offerings to the gods by the customs of the Greeks.

5When he had spent a month or longer, he left, putting his Scythian dress back on. He did this many times. He built a house in Borysthenes and married a local woman there.

Chapter 79

1But his end came badly for him, from a pretext like this. He wanted to be initiated into the rites of Dionysus Bacchus. Just as he was about to take the rite in hand, a most terrible sign appeared.

2In the city of the Borysthenites there was an enclosure around a large and costly house—I mentioned this a little way back. Sphinxes and griffins of white stone stood all around it. The god hurled a thunderbolt into it, and the whole place burned down. But Scyles performed the initiation none the less.

3The Scythians mock the Greeks over their Bacchic rites: they say it is not fitting to invent a god who drives men into frenzy.

4When Scyles had been initiated into the rites of Bacchus, one of the Borysthenites went to the Scythians and mocked them, saying: "You Scythians laugh at us because we rave and the god takes hold of us. Now this same spirit has seized your own king: he is raving and driven mad by the god. If you do not believe me, follow me, and I will show you."

5The leading Scythians followed him. The Borysthenite led them up secretly onto a tower and set them down there. When Scyles came past with the reveling band and the Scythians saw him raving, they made a great cry of grief. Then they went out and reported the whole army what they had seen.

Chapter 80

1After this Scyles rode off to his own country. The Scythians set up his brother Octamasades over themselves—his mother was the daughter of Teres—and rose up against Scyles.

2When Scyles learned what was being done against him, and the reason for it, he fled to Thrace. Octamasades, learning this, marched out against Thrace. When he reached the Ister, the Thracians stood against him. And just as the two sides were about to fight, Sitalces sent a message to Octamasades, saying this:

3"Why do we need to test each other? You are a son of my sister, and you have my brother. Hand him over to me, and I hand your Scyles over to you. Neither you nor I need risk an army."

4Having sent this message, Sitalces pressed the demand; for a brother of Sitalces had fled and was staying with Octamasades. Octamasades agreed to all this: he gave his own brother by the same mother over to Sitalces and took his brother Scyles in return.

5Sitalces took his brother and went home. Octamasades cut off Scyles' head on the spot. In this way the Scythians hold firm to their own customs, and for those who turn to foreign customs they give such penalties.

Chapter 81

1I could not learn the true number of the Scythians. I heard different stories about how many they are: some say they are very many, others say they are few—as Scythians go.

2This much, however, they showed me to see. Between the Borysthenes River and the Hypanis there is a district named Exampaeus. I mentioned it a little way back, saying that a spring of bitter water is in it, and that water flowing from the spring makes the Hypanis undrinkable.

3In that district lies a bronze vessel. It is six times the size of the mixing bowl that Pausanias, son of Cleombrotus, dedicated at the mouth of the Pontus.

4For anyone who has not yet seen this vessel, I will explain: the bronze vessel in Scythia easily holds six hundred amphoras; the thickness of this Scythian bronze vessel is six fingers. This is the story the locals told about how it came to be:

5Their king, whose name was Ariantas, wanted to know how many Scythians there were. He ordered every Scythian to bring him one arrowhead each, and threatened death to anyone who did not bring one.

6So a great number of arrowheads was brought in. He decided to leave a memorial made from them: out of these he had this bronze vessel made and dedicated it in that Exampaeus district. That is what I heard about the number of the Scythians.

Chapter 82

1This land has no marvels, except that its rivers are by far the largest and the most numerous. But there is one thing besides the rivers and the size of the plain that is worth marveling at, and it shall be told. They show a footprint of Heracles fixed in a rock by the Tyres River. It looks like the step of a man, but it is two cubits long. So much for that; I will go back to the story I set out to tell at the start.

Chapter 83

1While Darius was getting ready for his campaign against the Scythians, and was sending messengers to order some people to supply infantry, some to supply ships, and some to bridge the Thracian Bosporus, Artabanus, son of Hystaspes and brother of Darius, kept pressing him not to make the campaign against the Scythians, laying out how little the Scythians had to live on.

2But his good advice did not persuade Darius, so Artabanus gave up. Darius, once everything was ready, marched his army out of Susa.

Chapter 84

1Then one of the Persians, Oeobazus, asked Darius to leave one of his three sons behind, since all three were going on the campaign. Darius said that, as he was a friend and asked for modest things, he would leave all his sons behind.

2Oeobazus was overjoyed, hoping his sons were now free from the campaign. Darius then ordered the men set over this task to kill all the sons of Oeobazus.

Chapter 85

1These men were killed on the spot and left there. Darius marched from Susa and came to the Bosporus at Calchedon, where the bridge had been fixed. From there he boarded a boat and sailed out to the rocks called the Cyanean—the Greeks say these were once called the Wandering Rocks. He sat on the headland and gazed at the Pontus, a thing worth seeing.

2Of all the seas it is by nature the most amazing. Its length is 11,100 stades, and its breadth—where it is widest of itself—3,300 stades.

3The mouth of this sea is four stades wide. Its neck—the part called the Bosporus, where the bridge was fixed—is a hundred and twenty stades long. The Bosporus stretches on into the Propontis.

4The Propontis is five hundred stades across and fourteen hundred long, and it pours into the Hellespont. The Hellespont is seven stades narrow and four hundred long. The Hellespont then empties into an opening of the sea called the Aegean.

Chapter 86

1These distances were measured this way. A ship usually covers, on a long day, seventy thousand fathoms, and by night sixty thousand.

2From the mouth of the Pontus to the Phasis—this is the longest stretch of the Pontus—the voyage is of nine days and eight nights. That comes to 110,100 fathoms, and from these fathoms the stades are 11,100.

3From the Sindica to Themiscyra, which lies on the Thermodon River—this is where the Pontus is widest—the voyage is of three days and two nights. That comes to 30,030 fathoms, and the stades are 3,300.

4So this Pontus, the Bosporus, and the Hellespont have been measured by me as I said, and they are by nature as described. This Pontus also has a lake emptying into it that is not much smaller than itself; it is called Maeotis and the Mother of the Pontus.

Chapter 87

1When Darius had looked at the Pontus, he sailed back to the bridge; its builder had been Mandrocles of Samos. Having looked at the Bosporus too, he set up two pillars of white stone there, cutting an inscription on them in Assyrian writing and in Greek: a list of all the nations he led. He led all the peoples he ruled over. The number of these was counted, not counting the fleet: 700,000 in all, horsemen included; and six hundred ships had been gathered.

2Later the Byzantines brought these pillars to their city and used them for the altar of Artemis Orthosia—except one stone. That one was left beside the temple of Dionysus in Byzantium, full of Assyrian writing. The spot on the Bosporus where King Darius bridged it is, as I judge by working it out, midway between Byzantium and the temple at the mouth.

Chapter 88

1After this Darius was pleased with the bridge of boats. He rewarded its builder, Mandrocles of Samos, with ten of everything. From these gifts Mandrocles had a painting made as a first offering: the whole bridging of the Bosporus, with King Darius seated in the place of honor and his army crossing over. He dedicated it in the temple of Hera, with this inscription:

2"Mandrocles, having bridged the fish-swarming Bosporus, dedicated this memorial of the bridge of boats to Hera, / winning a crown for himself and glory for the Samians, / having carried out the wish of King Darius."

Chapter 89

1Those were the memorials that came from the man who bridged the crossing. Darius rewarded Mandrocles and crossed into Europe. He had given the Ionians orders to sail into the Pontus as far as the Ister River, and when they reached the Ister to wait for him there, bridging the river. The fleet was crewed by Ionians, Aeolians, and Hellespontians.

2The fleet sailed through the Cyanean rocks and made straight for the Ister. Then they sailed two days up the river from the sea, to the neck of the river where the mouths of the Ister split apart, and there they bridged it.

3Darius, having crossed the Bosporus on the bridge of boats, marched through Thrace. When he came to the sources of the Tearus River, he camped there for three days.

Chapter 90

1The neighbors say the Tearus is the best of rivers for its other healing powers, and for curing the itch in men and horses. Its springs number forty-two; they flow from the same rock, some of them cold and some hot.

2The road to these springs is the same length from the city of Heraion near Perinthus and from Apollonia on the Euxine Sea: two days' journey each way. This Tearus empties into the Contadesdus River, the Contadesdus into the Agrianes, the Agrianes into the Hebrus, and the Hebrus into the sea beside the city of Aenus.

Chapter 91

1When Darius came to this river and had made his camp, he was pleased with the river and set up a pillar there as well, cutting into it an inscription that said this:

2"The springs of the Tearus River give the best and finest water of all rivers. To them came, leading his army against the Scythians, the best and finest man of all men: Darius son of Hystaspes, king of the Persians and of all the mainland." That is what was written there.

Chapter 92

1From there Darius set out and came to another river named Artscus, which flows through the land of the Odrysae. When he came to this river he did this: he chose a spot for the army and ordered every man, as he passed by, to set one stone in that chosen spot. When the army had done this, he left behind great mounds of stones and drove his army on.

Chapter 93

1Before he came to the Ister, he first subdued the Getae, who believe themselves immortal. The Thracians who hold Salmydessus, and those settled beyond the cities of Apollonia and Mesambria—called the Cyrmianae and the Nipsaei—handed themselves over to Darius without a fight. But the Getae turned to stubborn resistance and were at once enslaved, though they are the bravest and the most just of the Thracians.

Chapter 94

1They hold themselves immortal in this way. They believe they do not die, but that the one who perishes goes to Salmoxis, a divine being; some of them call this same being Gebelezis.

2Once in every five-year period they send one of themselves, chosen by lot, as a messenger to Salmoxis, with orders to tell him whatever they need at the time. They send him this way: some men, appointed for the task, hold up three javelins. Others take the hands and feet of the man being sent to Salmoxis, swing him up into the air, and throw him onto the javelins. If he dies when pinned through, they take it that the god is favorable to them;

3if he does not die, they blame the messenger, saying he is a bad man. Having blamed him, they send another, giving him his orders while he is still alive.

4These same Thracians, in thunder and lightning, shoot arrows up at the sky and make threats against the god. They believe no other god exists but their own.

Chapter 95

1As I learn from the Greeks who live along the Hellespont and the Pontus, this Salmoxis was a man who served as a slave on Samos, a slave of Pythagoras son of Mnesarchus;

2then, having become free, he gained great wealth, and with it he went back to his own land. Since the Thracians lived wretched lives and were rather simple, Salmoxis—who knew the Ionian way of life and manners of thought deeper than the Thracians did, for he had kept company with Hellenes, and with Pythagoras, who was none of the weakest of the Hellenes' wise men—

3they say he set up a feasting hall, where he welcomed the leading men of the citizens and, as he feasted them, taught them that neither he nor his table companions nor those ever born from them would die, but would go to a place where they would live forever and have all good things.

4While he was doing what I have said and saying these things, he was building an underground chamber. When the chamber was entirely finished, he disappeared from among the Thracians, went down into the underground chamber, and lived there for three years;

5the Thracians longed for him and mourned him as dead. In the fourth year he appeared to them, and so what Salmoxis had said became believable to them. This, they say, is what he did.

Chapter 96

1As for this man and his underground chamber, I neither disbelieve nor believe it very strongly. But I think this Salmoxis lived many years before Pythagoras.

2Whether some Salmoxis was ever a man, or whether he is some divine being native to the Getae—farewell to him. These people, having been subdued by the Persians in this way, followed along with the rest of the army.

Chapter 97

1When Darius and the land army with him came to the Ister and all had crossed over, Darius ordered the Ionians to take the bridge of boats apart and follow him by land, along with the force from the ships.

2As the Ionians were about to take it apart and do what they were ordered, Coes, son of Erxander and general of the Mytilenaeans, spoke to Darius like this. He first asked whether Darius would welcome advice from a man who wanted to show himself his friend.

3"King, you are about to march into a land where you will be seen to have no defenders at all and no inhabited city. So leave this bridge standing just where it is, leaving as its guards the very men who built it.

4And if we succeed as we hope and find the Scythians, we have a way back. And if we cannot find them, at least that way back is safe. For I have never yet feared being beaten by the Scythians in battle. What I fear is that, unable to find them, we may come to harm while wandering about.

5Someone might say I speak these words for my own sake, wanting to stay behind. But I am putting forward the advice I find best for you, king; I myself will follow you, and I would not want to be left behind."

6Darius was greatly pleased with the advice and repaid him with these words: "My friend from Lesbos, when I get back safe to my home, be sure to appear before me, so that I may repay your good advice with good deeds."

Chapter 98

1Having said this, he tied sixty knots in a leather strap, called the tyrants of the Ionians to a talk, and said this:

2"Men of Ionia, my earlier advice about the bridge is set aside. Now, taking this strap, do this: as soon as you see me marching off against the Scythians, start from that time and untie one knot each day. If within that time I am not here, and the days of the knots run out, sail away each of you to your own homes.

3Until then, since this is now decided, keep guard over the bridge, showing every eagerness for its safety and its keeping. By doing this you will give me great thanks." Having said this, Darius hurried forward on his way.

Chapter 99

1Thrace juts out in front of the Scythian land on the seaward side. A gulf is formed by this land; Scythia receives it, and the Ister empties into it, its mouth turned toward the east wind.

2From the Ister I go on to mark out the seaward edge of the Scythian land itself for measurement. From the Ister onward begins the old Scythia proper, lying toward the south and the south wind, as far as the city called Carcinitis.

3From that city the same coast continues as a hilly country jutting out toward the Pontus. The Tauric nation lives on it, as far as the peninsula called the Rough Peninsula; it reaches down to the sea toward the east wind.

4For two of the four sides of Scythia run down to the sea—the south side and the east side—just as in the land of Attica. The Tauri live in a part of Scythia much like that, as if in Attica some other nation and not the Athenians lived on the Sunian headland, which juts out into the sea—the district from Thorikos to the deme of Anaphlystus.

5I say this comparing small things with great: such is Taurica. For anyone who has not sailed along Attica, I will explain in another way: it is as if in Iapygia some other nation and not the Iapygians had cut off the land, starting from the harbor of Brundisium and running to Tarentum, and lived on that headland. In saying these two things I say many like ones; Taurica resembles them.

Chapter 100

1From Taurica on, the Scythians now live in the parts beyond the Tauri and toward the eastern sea. They live west of the Cimmerian Bosporus and of the Maeotian lake, as far as the Tanaïs River, which empties into the innermost corner of that lake.

2So from the Ister inland, the Scythian land is shut off first by the Agathyrsi, then by the Neuri, then by the Androphagi, and last by the Melanchlaeni.

Chapter 101

1Scythia, then, is a square shape, with two of its sides running down to the sea. Its inland length and its length along the sea are equal in every direction.

2From the Ister to the Borysthenes is a journey of ten days, and from the Borysthenes to the Maeotian lake another ten. From the sea inland, to the Melanchlaeni who live above the Scythians, is a journey of twenty days.

3I have reckoned the daily journey at two hundred stades. So the crosswise sides of Scythia come to four thousand stades, and the upright sides, running inland, to another four thousand. Such, then, is the size of this land.

Chapter 102

1The Scythians reasoned that they alone could not drive off the army of Darius in open battle. They sent messengers to their neighbors. The kings of those nations gathered and took counsel, since a great army was coming at them.

2The kings who gathered were those of the Tauri, the Agathyrsi, the Neuri, the Androphagi, the Melanchlaeni, the Geloni, the Budini, and the Sauromatae.

Chapter 103

1Of these peoples, the Tauri have customs like this. They sacrifice to the Maiden the men wrecked at sea and any Greeks they catch after being driven onto their coast, in this way:

2after the first offering they club the head. Some say they push the body down from the cliff—the temple stands on a cliff—and impale the head. Others agree about the head, but say the body is not pushed off the cliff; it is buried in the ground. The Tauri themselves say that the spirit to whom they sacrifice is Iphigenia, daughter of Agamemnon.

3With enemy men they have subdued they do this. Each man cuts off a head and carries it home. He then fixes it on a long wooden stake, set up above the house so that it stands out high—most often above the chimney. They say these heads hang over the whole house as its guards. The Tauri live from plunder and war.

Chapter 104

1The Agathyrsi are the most luxurious of men and wear the most gold. They make the sharing of their wives common, so that they may all be brothers to one another, and all being kinsmen feel neither envy nor hatred toward one another. In their other customs they follow close to the Thracians.

Chapter 105

1The Neuri use Scythian customs. But one generation before Darius' campaign it happened that they left their whole land because of snakes. Their land brought out many snakes for them, and still more came down on them from the empty lands above. Pressed hard, they abandoned their own country and settled among the Budini. These people, it seems likely, are wizards.

2The Scythians and the Hellenes who live in Scythia say that once each year every one of the Neuri becomes a wolf for a few days, and then turns back into the same state as before. Those who tell me this do not persuade me; but they say it all the same, and they swear to it as they tell it.

Chapter 106

1The Androphagi have the wildest ways of all men. They recognize no justice and use no law at all. They are nomads; they wear dress like the Scythians', but speak their own language. They are the only one of these peoples who eat human flesh.

Chapter 107

1The Melanchlaeni all wear black garments—that is where their name comes from—and they use Scythian customs.

Chapter 108

1The Budini are a great and numerous nation, all of them strongly light-eyed and red-haired. A city has been built among them of wood; the name of the city is Gelonus. Each side of its wall is thirty stades long. It is high and made entirely of wood. Their houses are wooden, and their temples too.

2For there are shrines of Greek gods there, built in the Greek manner, with images and altars and wooden temples. They hold the biennial festivals of Dionysus and carry on the Bacchic revels. The Geloni were Greeks of old: they left the trading ports and settled among the Budini. In speech they use partly the Scythian language and partly the Greek.

Chapter 109

1The Budini do not use the same language as the Geloni, and their way of life is not the same either. The Budini are natives of the country; they are nomads, and they are the only people in this region who eat lice. The Geloni work the land, they eat grain, and they have gardens laid out. In looks and in skin color the two peoples are nothing alike. But the Greeks call the Budini Geloni too, though the name is not right.

2Their whole country is thick with forests of every kind. In the largest forest there is a great wide lake, with a marsh and reeds all around it. In this lake men catch water beasts, beavers, and other wild animals with square faces. The skins of these animals are sewn onto the edges of cloaks, and the animals' testicles are useful for cures for the womb.

Chapter 110

1This is what is told about the Sauromatae. When the Greeks fought the Amazons (the Scythians call the Amazons Oiorpata, and in the Greek language this name means killers of men; for they call a man oior, and pata means to kill), the story is that the Greeks won the battle at the Thermodon and sailed away. They took with them in three ships as many of the Amazons as they could capture alive. At sea the Amazons attacked them and killed all the men.

2The Amazons knew nothing about ships. They could not use rudders, sails, or oars. But after they had killed the men, the waves and the wind carried them along, and they came to land at the Cliffs by the Maeetian Lake; the Cliffs are in the land of the free Scythians. There the Amazons got off the ships and set out on foot into the inhabited country. The first thing they came upon was a herd of horses, and they seized it. Riding on these horses, they raided the property of the Scythians.

Chapter 111

1The Scythians could not make sense of the matter. They knew neither the language nor the clothing nor the tribe, and they wondered where these people had come from. They took them for men all of the same age, and so they fought a battle against them. The Scythians got control of the dead after the battle, and in this way they learned that they were women.

2When they took counsel, it seemed good to them not to kill the women in any way, but to send against them the youngest men of their own people. They guessed the number, matching it to how many the women were. The young men were to camp near the women and to do whatever the women did. If the women chased them, the young men were not to fight but to run away. When the women stopped, the young men were to come back and camp near them again. The Scythians decided this because they wanted children to be born from the women. The young men were sent off, and they did what they were ordered to do.

Chapter 112

1When the Amazons learned that the young men had come to do no harm, they let them alone. Day by day they moved their camp a little closer to the camp of the young men. The young men had nothing, just like the Amazons, except their weapons and their horses. They lived the same kind of life the women lived, hunting and raiding.

Chapter 113

1The Amazons did this at midday: they would scatter in groups of one and two, spreading out far from one another so as to have room. The Scythians noticed this, and they did the same. And when a woman had gone off alone, one of the young men would draw near to her.

2The Amazon did not push him away; she let him have his way with her. She could not speak, because they did not understand each other, but she made signs with her hand that he was to come to the same spot the next day and bring another man, showing that there were to be two, and that she would bring another woman herself.

3The young man, when he went away, told this to the rest. The next day he came to the spot, and he brought another man, and he found the Amazon waiting with a second woman. When the other young men learned of this, they too won over the rest of the Amazons in the same way.

Chapter 114

1After that the two camps joined, and they lived together, each man with the woman he had first joined with. The men could not learn the women's language, but the women caught on to the men's.

2When they understood one another, the men said this to the Amazons: "We have parents, and we have property. So let us not live this kind of life any longer. Let us go away to the main body of our people and live there. We will have you as our wives, and no other women." The women said this in reply:

3"We could not live with your women. Their customs are not the same as ours. We shoot with bows, we throw spears, and we ride horses, and we have never learned women's work. Your women do none of the things we have named. They do women's work, staying in the wagons, and they never go hunting or anywhere else."

4"So we could not get along with them. But if you want us as wives and want to do what is right, go to your parents and take your share of the property. Then come back, and let us live by ourselves." The young men agreed and did this.

Chapter 115

1When the young men had taken the share of the property that fell to them and came back to the Amazons, the women said this to them:

2"Fear and dread hold us, and we do not see how we are to live in this land, when we have cut you off from your fathers and done much harm to your land.

3"But since you want us for wives, do this together with us: come, let us leave this land, and let us cross over the Tanais River and make our home beyond it."

Chapter 116

1The young men agreed to this too. They crossed the Tanais and traveled three days' journey from the Tanais toward the rising sun, and three days from the Maeetian Lake toward the north wind. When they came to the region where they now live, they settled there.

2From that time the women of the Sauromatae have kept their old way of life. They go out on horseback to hunt, both together with the men and without the men. They go to war as well, and they wear the same dress as the men.

Chapter 117

1The Sauromatae speak the Scythian language, but they speak it badly, as they have done from the beginning, because the Amazons never learned it properly. Their marriage customs are like this. No girl marries until she has killed a man of the enemy. Some of them even die old and unmarried, because they cannot fulfill the law.

Chapter 118

1The messengers of the Scythians came to the kings of the peoples named above, and told them the whole matter: "The Persian, once he had conquered everything on the other continent, bridged the neck of the Bosporus and crossed over into this continent. After crossing and conquering the Thracians, he is now bridging the Ister River. He wants to make all this land here his own as well."

2"So do not sit back and watch us be destroyed. Have the same thought we have, and let us stand against the man who is coming. Will you not do this? If we are hard pressed, we will either leave our country or stay and come to terms with him."

3"For what would become of us if you refuse to take revenge? But this will bring you nothing better. The Persian is coming against us no more than he is coming against you, and once he has conquered us, he will not be willing to leave you alone."

4"We will give you a great proof of all this. If the Persian were riding against us alone, wanting to pay us back for our former slavery, he would have left all the others alone and gone straight to our land. Then it would be clear to everyone that he was driving against the Scythians and not against the others."

5"But now, as soon as he crossed into this continent, he conquered all who stood in his way. He already holds the rest of the Thracians under him, and the Getae too, who are our neighbors."

Chapter 119

1While the Scythians were saying these things, the kings who had come from these peoples took counsel, and their opinions split in two. The kings of the Geloni, the Budini, and the Sauromatae agreed together and promised to help the Scythians take revenge. But the kings of the Agathyrsi, the Neuri, the Androphagi, the Melanchlaeni, and the Tauri gave the Scythians this answer:

2"If you had not been the first to wrong the Persians and start the war, and if you were not now asking for the very things you ask for, then what you say would seem right to us. We would obey you and do the same as you."

3"As it is, you invaded their land without us and beat the Persians for as long as the god allowed. Now the same god has raised them up, and they are paying you back in the same way."

4"We did those men no wrong at that time, none at all, and we will not try to be the first to do wrong now. But if he invades our land too and begins to wrong us, we will not put up with it either. Until we see that happen, we will stay in our own country. We believe the Persians have come not against us but against those who caused the wrong."

Chapter 120

1When the Scythians heard this answer brought back to them, they took counsel. They decided not to fight a pitched battle in the open, since these peoples would not join them as allies. Instead they would withdraw and drive off, filling in the wells and the springs on their route as they went, and wiping the grass from the earth. They divided themselves into two parts for this.

2To the one part, over which Scopasis ruled, the Sauromatae were to attach themselves. This part was to withdraw directly, if the Persian turned toward the Tanais River by the Maeetian Lake; it was to flee, and when the Persian turned back, it was to come on and pursue him. This was one of the two parts of the royal power, and the route described was assigned to it.

3The other two parts of the royal power, the great one over which Idanthyrsus ruled and the third over which Taxacis ruled, were to join into one, and the Geloni and Budini were to be added to them. This force was to keep a day's march ahead of the Persians on the road, withdrawing and doing what had been decided.

4First they were to retreat toward the lands of the peoples who had refused their alliance, so as to force these peoples into the war too. If they would not enter the war against the Persians of their own will, they were to enter it against their will. After that the force was to return to its own land and attack, when it seemed best to them in counsel.

Chapter 121

1Having settled this plan, the Scythians moved out to meet the army of Darius. They sent ahead as scouts the best of their horsemen. All the wagons in which their children and women lived, and all the flocks, except as many animals as were enough for their food—leaving those behind—they sent forward the rest with the wagons, ordering them to keep driving toward the north wind.

Chapter 122

1This baggage went on ahead. The scouts of the Scythians found the Persians about three days' journey from the Ister. Having found them, they camped a day's march ahead and trampled flat everything that grew out of the ground,

2and the Persians, when they saw the Scythian cavalry appear, followed after them along their tracks while the Scythians kept giving way. Then, since the Scythians made for the one division, the Persians chased them toward the east and toward the Tanais.

3When the Scythians had crossed the Tanais River, the Persians crossed after them and kept up the pursuit, until they had passed through the land of the Sauromatae and come into the land of the Budini.

Chapter 123

1All the time the Persians went through the land of Scythia and the land of the Sauromatae, there was nothing for them to take, because the country was bare. But when they invaded the land of the Budini, they came upon a wooden wall. The Budini had all gone away, and the wall was completely empty, so the Persians burned it.

2After doing this, they kept following the tracks ever forward, until they had passed through this land too and come into the desert. This desert is grazed by no men at all. It lies beyond the land of the Budini and is seven days' journey across.

3Beyond the desert live the Thyssagetae. Four great rivers flow out of their country, running through the land of the Maeetae and emptying into the lake called Maeetis. Their names are these: the Lycus, the Oarus, the Tanais, and the Syrgis.

Chapter 124

1When Darius came to the desert, he stopped the chase and set up his army on the Oarus River. There he built eight great forts, set an equal distance apart, about sixty stades at the most. The ruins of these were still standing in my time.

2While Darius was busy with these works, the Scythians he had been chasing went around by the north and got back into Scythia. When they had vanished altogether, so that the Persians could no longer see any sign of them, Darius left those forts half built. He turned and marched west, thinking that these were all the Scythians there were, and that they were fleeing west.

Chapter 125

1He drove his army on at top speed, and when he came into Scythia, he fell in with both divisions of the Scythians. Having found them, he chased them as they kept slipping away, a day's march behind.

2Since Darius did not let up in his pursuit, the Scythians followed their plan and retreated into the lands of the peoples who had refused their alliance, first into the land of the Melanchlaeni.

3When the Scythians and the Persians together had invaded their land and thrown them into confusion, the Scythians retreated into the country of the Androphagi. When these too had been thrown into confusion, they fell back toward the Neuri. When these were being disturbed in their turn, the Scythians went for refuge to the Agathyrsi.

4The Agathyrsi saw their neighbors fleeing from the Scythians in confusion. Before the Scythians could enter their land, they sent a herald and forbade the Scythians to set foot in their borders, telling them in advance that if they tried to come in, they would first have to fight the Agathyrsi.

5Having given this warning, the Agathyrsi marched to their borders, meaning to block whoever came on. But the Melanchlaeni, the Androphagi, and the Neuri, when the Persians invaded together with the Scythians, did not turn to fight. They forgot their threats and fled ever toward the north wind, in confusion, into the desert.

6The Scythians did not come into the land of the Agathyrsi, who had refused them. From the land of the Neuri they turned back into their own country, with the Persians after them.

Chapter 126

1When this had gone on a long time and would not stop, Darius sent a horseman to Idanthyrsus, king of the Scythians, with this message: "Extraordinary man, why do you run away forever, when you could do the other of these two things instead? If you think yourself strong enough to withstand my power, stop your wandering, stand your ground, and fight. But if you admit you are weaker, then stop this running too, and come to talk with your master, bringing him gifts of earth and water."

Chapter 127

1Idanthyrsus, king of the Scythians, answered this: "This is how it is with me, Persian. I have never run from any man out of fear, not before and not now, and I am not running from you now. I am doing nothing new now, nothing but what I am used to doing in peacetime."

2"As for why I do not fight you at once, I will tell you that too. We have no cities and no planted land, nothing of that kind which, if it were taken or ruined, would make us quick to join battle with you. But if you must come to this speedily in any case, we do happen to have the tombs of our fathers."

3"Find them and try to destroy them, and then you will learn whether we will fight you over the tombs or not. Before that, unless talk persuades us, we will not join battle with you."

4"Let that be all about fighting. My only masters are Zeus, the ancestor of my line, and Hestia, queen of the Scythians. In place of gifts of earth and water, I will send you such gifts as it is fitting for you to receive. And in place of your claim to be my master, I tell you to weep. That is the answer of the Scythians."

Chapter 128

1The herald went off to carry this message to Darius. The Scythian kings, when they heard the word "slavery," were filled with anger.

2They sent to the Ionians, the men who guarded the bridged Ister, telling them to come to talks; this was the division assigned to the Sauromatae, over which Scopasis ruled. The kings who remained decided to stop leading the Persians astray and to attack them every time they went out to take in food. So whenever the men of Darius went out after food, the Scythians did what they had decided.

3The Scythian horse always turned back the Persian horse. The Persian riders, fleeing, fell in among their foot soldiers, and the foot soldiers came up to help them. The Scythians charged the horse, then drew back, because they feared the foot soldiers. The Scythians also made similar attacks by night.

Chapter 129

1Now I will tell of the greatest wonder of all, the thing that helped the Persians when the Scythians attacked the camp of Darius: the voice of the donkeys and the look of the mules.

2The land of Scythia breeds neither donkeys nor mules, as I showed before. In the whole Scythian country there are no donkeys and no mules at all, because of the cold. The donkeys, with their rough ways, threw the Scythian horses into confusion.

3Many times, when the Scythians were charging at the Persians, the horses would hear the donkeys' voices in the middle of it all. They would wheel about in confusion and stand in astonishment, holding their ears straight up, because they had never heard such a voice before or seen such a shape.

Chapter 130

1So things went for a small part of the war. The Scythians, whenever they saw the Persians thrown into confusion, did the following, so that the Persians would stay longer in Scythia, and so that, staying, they would waste away for lack of everything. They would leave some of their own sheep behind with the herdsmen, and they themselves would move off to another place. The Persians would come up, take the sheep, and having taken them, be very pleased with what they had done.

Chapter 131

1When this had happened many times, in the end Darius was caught in a hard strait. The kings of the Scythians learned of this, and they sent a herald carrying gifts to Darius: a bird, a mouse, a frog, and five arrows.

2The Persians asked the man who brought the gifts what the meaning of what was given was. He said that nothing more had been sent with him but the order to hand the gifts over and get away as fast as he could. He told the Persians themselves that, if they were clever, they were to work out what the gifts meant.

Chapter 132

1When the Persians heard this, they took counsel. Darius' opinion was that the Scythians were giving themselves to him, along with earth and water. He reasoned in this way: the mouse lives in the earth and eats the same food as man; the frog lives in the water; the bird is most like a horse; and by giving the arrows, the Scythians are surrendering their courage.

2This was the opinion Darius had settled on. But the opinion of Gobryas, one of the seven men who had killed the Magus, stood against it. He read the gifts to mean this:

3"Unless you become birds and fly up into the sky, Persians, or become mice and sink down under the earth, or become frogs and leap into the lakes, you will never go back home. These arrows will be striking you down."

Chapter 133

1So the Persians read the gifts. But one division of the Scythians, the one first told to guard the Maeetian Lake and then to go to the Ister and speak with the Ionians, when it came back to the bridge, said this:

2"Men of Ionia, we have come bringing you freedom, if only you are willing to listen. We hear that Darius ordered you to guard the bridge for sixty days and no more, and that if he did not come within that time, you were to go away to your own land.

3"If you do this, you will be free of blame from him and free of blame from us; stay the days that were set, and after that, go away." When the Ionians had promised to do this, the Scythians hurried back as fast as they could.

Chapter 134

1After the gifts had been brought to Darius, the Scythians who had been left behind drew up against the Persians with foot and horse, meaning to join battle. While the Scythians stood in their ranks, a hare broke into the middle, and every Scythian who saw it ran after it. The Scythians fell into confusion and cried out. Darius asked the enemy what the noise meant, and when he learned that they were chasing a hare, he said to the men he was used to talking with:

2"These men think nothing of us, and it seems to me now that Gobryas spoke rightly about the Scythian gifts. Since that is how things look to me too, we need good counsel, so that our way home will be safe." Gobryas answered: "King, I knew even by what I had heard that these men had nothing to live on. But coming here I learned it still better, because I saw them making a fool of us.

3"This is my advice: as soon as night comes, light the campfires as we usually do. Then trick the weakest of the soldiers into staying behind with their hardships, tie up all the donkeys, and get away, before the Scythians reach the Ister to destroy the bridge, or before the Ionians do anything they can think of against us."

Chapter 135

1This was Gobryas' advice. Then night came, and Darius followed this plan: he tied up all the donkeys and left them there in the camp, and he left behind the men who were worn out and those whose death would have counted for the least.

2He left the donkeys and the weak men of the army for this reason: the donkeys were to make a noise, and the men were left because they were weak, but the excuse given out for it was this—that Darius was about to attack the Scythians with the picked part of his army, while these men guarded the camp in the meantime.

3Having put this plan before the men left behind, and having lit the fires, Darius hurried off toward the Ister as fast as he could. The donkeys, left without the crowd, brayed much louder than before. When the Scythians heard the donkeys, they were quite sure the Persians were still there in camp.

Chapter 136

1When day came, the men left behind learned that Darius had betrayed them. They held out their hands to the Scythians and said what they had to say. The Scythians, hearing this, gathered as fast as they could, the two divisions of the Scythians and the one division, and the Sauromatae, the Budini, and the Geloni, and they chased the Persians toward the Ister.

2The Persian army was for the most part foot soldiers, and it did not know the roads, for the roads were not cut through; the Scythian force was all horsemen and knew the short cuts of the country. So the two missed each other, and the Scythians reached the bridge far ahead of the Persians.

3When they learned that the Persians had not yet come, they spoke to the Ionians, who were in their ships: "Men of Ionia, the set number of days has passed, and you are no longer doing what is right by staying.

4"Before, you stayed out of fear. Now break up the crossing as fast as you can, and go away free and glad, giving thanks to the gods and to the Scythians. The man who was once your master we will bring to such a state that he will never again march against any people."

Chapter 137

1The Ionians took counsel on this. Miltiades the Athenian, who was general and tyrant of the Chersonesites on the Hellespont, gave the opinion that they should obey the Scythians and set Ionia free.

2Histiaeus of Miletus spoke against this. He said that now each of them ruled his city because of Darius, but once Darius' power was pulled down, neither he himself would be able to rule the Milesians nor would anyone else anywhere; for each of the cities would rather be ruled by the people than by a tyrant.

3When Histiaeus put this opinion forward, they all turned to it at once, though before they had been choosing the opinion of Miltiades.

Chapter 138

1These were the men who differed in the vote and who counted with the king. The tyrants of the Hellespontines were Daphnis of Abydos, Hippoclus of Lampsacus, Herophantus of Parium, Metrodorus of Proconnesus, Aristagoras of Cyzicus, and Ariston of Byzantium.

2These were the men from the Hellespont. From Ionia came Strattis of Chios, Aeaces of Samos, Laodamas of Phocaea, and Histiaeus of Miletus, whose was the opinion set against the opinion of Miltiades. Of the Aeolians, only one man of account was present, Aristagoras of Cyme.

Chapter 139

1When these men chose the opinion of Histiaeus, they decided to add to it these acts and words: to break up the part of the bridge that faces the Scythians, but to break only as much as an arrow shot reaches, so that they would seem to be doing something while doing nothing, and so that the Scythians would not try to force their way across the Ister over the bridge; and, as they broke the Scythian side of the bridge, to say that they would do everything that gives the Scythians pleasure.

2This they added to the opinion. Then Histiaeus answered for all of them, saying this: "Men of Scythia, you have come bringing good things, and you press us at the right time. What comes from you to us is well guided, and what comes from us to you is served with care. As you see, we are breaking up the crossing, and we will put all our hearts into it, because we want to be free.

3"While we do this breaking up, it is time for you to search for those men. When you find them, take revenge for us and for yourselves, as those men deserve."

Chapter 140

1The Scythians, for the second time, believed that the Ionians were speaking the truth, and they turned back to search for the Persians, and so they missed the whole route by which the Persians got out of the country. The Scythians themselves were the cause of this: they had ruined the pastures there for their horses and filled in the springs.

2If they had not done this, it would have been easy for them, if they had wanted, to find the Persians. Now, in the very things they thought were planned best, they went wrong.

3The Scythians made their way through their own country wherever there was grass for their horses and water, searching for the enemy, thinking that the Persians too were escaping through such country. But the Persians kept to the track they had made on the way out, and in this way they found the crossing, though only barely.

4They arrived at night and found the bridge broken up, and they fell into the greatest fear that the Ionians had left them behind.

Chapter 141

1There was with Darius an Egyptian man who had the loudest voice of any man alive. Darius had this man stand on the bank of the Ister and call for Histiaeus the Milesian. The Egyptian did this, and Histiaeus, hearing the very first call, set all the ships to ferrying the army across and put the bridge back in place.

Chapter 142

1So the Persians escaped. The Scythians, searching, missed the Persians a second time as well. They judge the Ionians, if they are free, to be the most base and most cowardly of all men; and, judging by the fact that they are slaves, they say they are slaves who love their masters and are the least likely of all to run away. This is what the Scythians have thrown out against the Ionians.

Chapter 143

1Darius marched through Thrace and came to Sestos in the Chersonese. From there he himself crossed in ships to Asia, and he left Megabazus, a Persian, as general in Europe. Darius had once given this man an honor, after he said this word among the Persians:

2Darius had begun to eat a pomegranate. As soon as he opened the first of the pomegranates, his brother Artabanus asked him what he would wish to have as many of as there were seeds in the pomegranate. Darius said that he would rather have that number of Megabazuses than have Greece subject to him.

3It was for saying this among the Persians that he honored him, and now he left him behind as general of his army of eighty thousand men.

Chapter 144

1This same Megabazus left behind an immortal memory among the people of the Hellespont for words he spoke.

2When he was in Byzantium, he learned that the Chalcedonians had founded their country seventeen years before the Byzantines founded theirs. When he learned this, he said the Chalcedonians must have been blind at that time; for unless they had been blind, they would never have chosen the worse site to build on when the better one was there.

3So Megabazus, left behind as general in the land of the Hellespontines, subdued the peoples who did not side with the Persians.

Chapter 145

1This man was busy with these things. At that very time another great expedition set out against Libya, and I will give the reason for it, after first telling this earlier story.

2The sons of the sons of the crew of the Argo had been driven out of Lemnos by the Pelasgians, the men who had come from Brauron and carried off the Athenian women. Sailing away from Lemnos, they went to Lacedaemon, went up to Taygetus, and lit a fire.

3The Lacedaemonians saw the fire and sent a messenger to learn who they were and where they came from. They told the messenger that they were Minyae, sons of the heroes who had sailed in the Argo, and that these heroes had put in at Lemnos and settled them there.

4When the Lacedaemonians heard the story of the descent of the Minyae, they sent a second time to ask what they wanted, coming into the country and lighting a fire. The Minyae said they had been driven out by the Pelasgians and had come to their fathers, for that was the most right thing to happen; and they asked to live with them, sharing in their honors and holding a share of the land.

5The Lacedaemonians were willing to take in the Minyae on the terms they themselves asked. What most moved them to do this was the voyage of the sons of Tyndareus in the Argo. They took the Minyae in, gave them a share of land, and divided them among the tribes. The Minyae at once took wives, and the women they had brought from Lemnos they gave out in marriage to others.

Chapter 146

1After no long time had gone by, the Minyae at once grew insolent. They demanded a share of the kingship and did other things that were not right.

2The Lacedaemonians decided to kill them. They arrested them and threw them into prison. The Lacedaemonians kill those they mean to kill by night, never by day.

3When they were about to make an end of them, the wives of the Minyae asked to enter the prison and talk with each one her own husband. These women were citizens' wives and daughters of the first men of Sparta. The Lacedaemonians let them in, thinking no trick would come from the women.

4When the women went in, they did this: they handed over to their husbands all the clothing they themselves wore, and they put on the men's clothing. The Minyae dressed in the women's clothes and went out as women. Having escaped this way, they sat themselves down again on Taygetus.

Chapter 147

1At this same time Theras, son of Autesion, son of Tisamenus, son of Thersander, son of Polynices, was getting ready to sail from Lacedaemon to lead out a colony.

2This Theras was of Cadmean descent, and his mother was sister to Aristodemus' sons Eurysthenes and Procles. While those boys were still little children, Theras held the kingship at Sparta as their guardian.

3When his nephews grew up and took over the rule, Theras, who had once tasted rule himself, found it hard to be ruled by others. He said he would not stay in Lacedaemon, but would sail away to his kinsmen.

4On the island now called Thera, before that called Calliste, there lived descendants of Membliarus son of Poeciles, a Phoenician man. Cadmus son of Agenor, searching for Europa, had put in at the island now called Thera. Once he had landed—whether he liked the country, or whether he wanted this for some other reason—he left Membliarus there on the island, with other Phoenicians and with some of his own kinsmen.

5These men held the island called Calliste for eight generations of men, before Theras came from Lacedaemon.

Chapter 148

1Theras now sailed out to these men with a people taken from the tribes. He meant to live together with them, not to drive them out at all, but to settle among them as neighbors.

2The Minyae had broken out of the prison and were sitting on Taygetus. While the Lacedaemonians were planning to destroy them, Theras asked for their lives, so that there should be no killing, and he promised to lead them out of the country himself.

3The Lacedaemonians agreed to this plan. Theras sailed with three thirty-oared ships to the descendants of Membliarus, taking not all the Minyae but only a few.

4Most of the Minyae turned toward the Paroreatae and the Caucones. They drove these people out of the country, then divided themselves into six parts and founded these cities in the land: Lepreum, Macistus, Phrixae, Pyrgus, Epium, and Nudium. Most of these were sacked by the Eleans in my own time. The island got the name Thera from Theras, its founder.

Chapter 149

1Theras' son said he would not sail with his father, and Theras said he would leave him behind, a sheep among wolves. Because of this saying, the young man got the name Oeolycus, and the name stuck with him. From Oeolycus came Aegeus, after whom the Aegeidae are named, a great tribe in Sparta.

2The men of this tribe had no children who lived. On the word of an oracle they set up a sacred place of the Furies of Laius and of Oedipus, and after that their children lived, and the same thing held true for the descendants of these men in Thera.

Chapter 150

1Up to this point of the story, the Lacedaemonians tell the same tale about it as the Therans. From this point on, only the Therans tell what follows.

2Grinnus son of Aesanius, a descendant of this Theras and king of the island of Thera, came to Delphi, bringing a hecatomb from his city. Other citizens followed him, and Battus son of Polymnestus followed too; he was of the line of Euphemus, one of the Minyae.

3When Grinnus the king of the Therans asked the oracle about other things, the Pythia answered that he was to found a city in Libya. He replied: "Lord, I am already old, and heavy to lift. Order one of these younger men to do this." As he said this, he pointed at Battus.

4That was all at the time. But when they went away, they did not know what to make of the oracle. They did not know where the land of Libya was, and they did not dare to send a colony off to an unknown land.

Chapter 151

1For seven years after that, no rain fell on Thera, and during those years all the trees on the island dried up except one. When the Therans asked the oracle, the Pythia again brought up the colony to Libya.

2When they could find no cure for the evil, they sent messengers to Crete to search whether any Cretan or any settler living there had ever come to Libya. Wandering about the island, these men came also to the city of Itanus. There they fell in with a dyer of purple whose name was Corobius. He said that he had been carried off by winds and had come to Libya, and from Libya to the island of Platea.

3They persuaded this man with pay and took him to Thera. From Thera there first sailed a few men as scouts. When Corobius had guided them to this island, Platea, they left Corobius behind, leaving him food for a set number of months, and they themselves sailed back as fast as they could to tell the Therans about the island.

Chapter 152

1They stayed away longer than the time agreed, and everything failed Corobius. After that, a Samian ship on its way to Egypt, with Colaeus as its captain, was driven to this Platea. When the Samians heard the whole story from Corobius, they left him food for a year.

2They themselves weighed anchor from the island and tried to sail for Egypt, but an east wind drove them off course. The wind did not let up, and they sailed through the Pillars of Heracles and came to Tartessus, led by a divine guidance.

3This trading port was untouched at that time. So when these men sailed back home, they made the greatest profit from cargo of all the Greeks we know of for certain, after Sostratus son of Laodamas of Aegina; against him no one else can contend.

4The Samians took a tenth of the profit, six talents, and had a bronze mixing bowl made in the Argive style, with griffin heads sticking out all around it. They dedicated it in the temple of Hera, setting under it three giant bronze figures seven cubits tall, resting on their knees.

5Because of this deed, great friendships were first formed between the Samians on the one side and the Cyrenaeans and Therans on the other.

Chapter 153

1When the Therans came back to Thera, having left Corobius on the island, they reported that there was an island built off Libya. The Therans decided to send one brother chosen by lot from each group of brothers, and men from all the seven regions of the island, with Battus as leader and king of them all. So they sent two fifty-oared ships to Platea.

Chapter 154

1This is what the Therans say. The rest of the story is now told alike by Therans and Cyrenaeans. The Cyrenaeans do not agree with the Therans at all about Battus; they say this. There is a city of Crete called Oaxus, where Etearchus became king. He had a daughter by his dead wife, whose name was Phronime, and he married another woman besides her.

2This second wife, once she came into the house, claimed to be stepmother to Phronime in deed as well, and did her harm, scheming everything against her. In the end she brought a charge of loose conduct against her and persuaded her husband to believe it this way. Convinced by the woman, he planned an unholy thing against his daughter.

3There was in Oaxus a Theran man, a trader, named Themison. Etearchus took him as a guest and made him swear at a feast that he would do whatever he asked of him. When he had sworn it, Etearchus brought out his own daughter and handed her over to him, telling him to carry her away and throw her into the sea.

4Themison was angry at being tricked over the oath, and he gave up his guest-friendship with Etearchus. He did this: he took the girl and sailed. When he was out on the open sea, to free himself from the oath of Etearchus, he tied ropes around her and lowered her into the sea, then hauled her up again and came to Thera.

Chapter 155

1There Polymnestus, a man of standing among the Therans, took Phronime and kept her as his concubine. In time a son was born to him, weak of voice and lisping. His name was set down as Battus, as Therans and Cyrenaeans say; but in my thinking, it was something else.

2Battus got his new name when he came to Libya. He took it both from the oracle that was given him at Delphi and from the honor, adopting the name that went with it. The Libyans call a king "battus," and for that reason I think the Pythia, speaking as a prophet, called him by the Libyan word, knowing that he would be king in Libya.

3When he had grown to manhood, he came to Delphi about his voice. When he asked, the Pythia gave him this answer: "Battus, you have come about your voice. But Lord Phoebus Apollo sends you to Libya, a founder of a city that feeds sheep." — as if she had said, using the Greek tongue: "King, you have come about your voice."

4He answered in these words: "Lord, I came to you to ask about my voice, but you give me other impossible things, telling me to found a colony in Libya—I am but a weak man, with what power, with what hand?" Saying this, he could not persuade her to give any other answer. And since she gave the same oracles as before, Battus went away and sailed back to Thera for the time being.

Chapter 156

1After that, bad luck came on him and on the other Therans as well. Not knowing what caused their misfortunes, the Therans sent to Delphi to ask about the evils that were on them.

2The Pythia answered that they would do better if they helped Battus found Cyrene in Libya. After that the Therans sent Battus off with two fifty-oared ships. These men sailed to Libya, but since they could do nothing else there, they went back again to Thera.

3The Therans shot at them as they came back to land and would not let them bring their ships in; they ordered them to sail back. Forced to do so, they sailed off and founded an island that lies off Libya, whose name, as was said before, is Platea. The island is said to be the same size as the city the Cyrenaeans now have.

Chapter 157

1They lived on that island two years, and nothing good came of it. Leaving one of their number behind, they all sailed off to Delphi. When they came to the oracle, they asked it, saying that they lived in Libya, but that living there did them no good at all.

2The Pythia answered them this: "If you know the sheep-feeding Libya better than I do, I, who have not come, while you have come, I wonder greatly at your wisdom." When Battus and his men heard this, they sailed back. The god would not let them off from the colony before they had come to Libya itself.

3They came to the island, picked up the man they had left there, and founded a settlement on the mainland of Libya opposite the island. The place was called Aziris. Finest groves shut it in on both sides, and a river runs past it on one side.

Chapter 158

1They lived in that place six years. In the seventh year the Libyans asked them to move, saying they would lead them to a better place, and they decided to leave it.

2From there the Libyans led them on, moving them westward. They made sure the Greeks would not pass through the finest part of the country; they reckoned out the hours of the day and marched them by night. The name of that country is Irasa.

3They led them to a spring said to be Apollo's, and the Libyan men said: "Greeks, this is a good place for you to live, for here the sky is holed through."

Chapter 159

1For the lifetime of Battus, the founder, who ruled forty years, and of his son Arcesilaus, who ruled sixteen years, the Cyrenaeans lived on, just as many as had been sent out in the first colony.

2Under the third, Battus, who was called the Prosperous, the Pythia urged all the Greeks to sail and live together with the Cyrenaeans in Libya, for the Cyrenaeans had invited them to share out the land.

3The oracle ran this way: "Whoever comes to lovely Libya after the land is being shared out, I say that the land will care for him only after them."

4A great crowd gathered into Cyrene. The Libyans living around them lost a great stretch of land, and they were badly mistreated by the Cyrenaeans. So their own king, whose name was Adicran, sent to Egypt and gave themselves over to Apries, king of Egypt.

5Apries gathered a great army of Egyptians and sent it against Cyrene. The Cyrenaeans marched out into the country of Irasa, to the spring Thestes. There they met the Egyptians in battle and won the fight.

6The Egyptians had never tried the Greeks before, and they fought carelessly. They were destroyed so completely that only a few of them got back to Egypt. Because of this, and blaming Apries for it, the Egyptians broke away from him.

Chapter 160

1This Battus had a son, Arcesilaus. When Arcesilaus first became king, he quarreled with his own brothers. They left him and went to another part of Libya. Acting on their own counsel, they founded the city then called, and still called today, Barca. While they founded it, they also won the Libyans away from the Cyrenaeans.

2Arcesilaus then marched out against the Libyans who had taken them in and gone over to their side. The Libyans feared him and fled east to those Libyans who live farther east.

3Arcesilaus followed the men who fled, until, still chasing them, he came to Leucon in Libya. There the Libyans decided to attack him. In the battle they beat the Cyrenaeans so badly that seven thousand Cyrenaean hoplites fell there.

4After this wound, Arcesilaus, worn out and drugged by the medicine he had drunk, was strangled by his brother Haliarchus. Haliarchus was then killed by Arcesilaus' wife by a trick; her name was Eryxo.

Chapter 161

1Arcesilaus' son Battus took over the kingship. He was lame and weak in his feet. Because of the disaster that had come upon them, the Cyrenaeans sent to Delphi to ask in what way they might best set their affairs in order and live.

2The Pythia told them to bring a man to set their state in order from Mantineia in Arcadia. The Cyrenaeans asked, and the Mantineians gave them the most respected man of their citizens, whose name was Demonax.

3This man came to Cyrene and looked into everything. First he divided them into three tribes, arranging it this way: one tribe of Therans and of those who lived around them; another of Peloponnesians and Cretans; and a third of all the islanders. Next he took away from King Battus the sacred precincts and the priesthoods, and he put all the other powers the kings had held before into the hands of the people.

Chapter 162

1Things went on this way through the life of this Battus. But under his son Arcesilaus there was great uproar over the honors.

2Arcesilaus, son of the lame Battus and of Pheretime, said he would not put up with the arrangements Demonax the Mantineian had made, and he demanded back his ancestors' privileges. He fought for this, lost, and fled to Samos. His mother fled to Salamis in Cyprus.

3Salamis was then ruled by Evelthon, who dedicated in Delphi the incense burner worth seeing that stands in the treasury of the Corinthians. Pheretime came to him and asked him for an army that would bring them back to Cyrene.

4Evelthon gave her anything but an army. She took what he gave and said that this too was fine, but the finer thing would be to give her the army she was asking for.

5She said this over everything he gave, so in the end Evelthon sent her out a gift: a golden distaff and spindle, with wool as well. When Pheretime said the same words again, Evelthon said that gifts like these were what women got, not armies.

Chapter 163

1Arcesilaus, meanwhile, was in Samos. He gathered every man he could with the promise of a sharing out of land. When a great army had come together, Arcesilaus was sent to Delphi to ask the oracle about his return home.

2The Pythia gave him this answer:

3"Four Battuses and four Arcesilauses, eight generations of men, Loxias grants you to rule Cyrene. Beyond that he advises you not even to try. But you, when you have gone down to your own place, keep quiet. If you find the oven full of jars, do not bake the jars, but send them off with the following wind. But if you do bake the oven, do not enter the place that is girt round by running water; if you do, you will die, and the finest bull with you." This is what the Pythia said to Arcesilaus.

Chapter 164

1He took the men from Samos and went down to Cyrene. Once he had control of affairs, he did not remember the oracle. He demanded payment from the men of the other party for the time of his exile.

2Some of them he banished from the country altogether. Others he overpowered and sent off to Cyprus to be put to death; the Cnidians rescued them when they were driven to their coast and sent them on to Thera. Other Cyrenaeans fled into a great private tower of Aglomachus, and Arcesilaus piled brushwood around it and burned them inside.

3Then he learned that he had done the very thing the oracle was about, that the Pythia had told him not to bake the jars when he found them in the oven. He did not want to work the destruction of the city of the Cyrenaeans. He feared the death that had been foretold for him, and he thought Cyrene was the place girt round by water on both sides.

4He had for a wife a kinswoman of his own, the daughter of the king of the Barcaeans; the king's name was Alazeir. Arcesilaus came to him, and when the Barcaean men and some of the exiles from Cyrene caught sight of him in the marketplace, they killed him, and they killed his father-in-law Alazeir too. So Arcesilaus, whether he meant to or not, missed the meaning of the oracle, and his fate found him.

Chapter 165

1His mother Pheretime stayed in Cyrene while Arcesilaus lived in Barca, working out his own ruin. She held her son's privileges in Cyrene herself, managing the rest of affairs and sitting in the council.

2When she learned that her son had died in Barca, she fled to Egypt. Arcesilaus had done Cambyses son of Cyrus a service. It was this Arcesilaus who gave Cyrene to Cambyses and agreed to pay him tribute.

3Pheretime came to Egypt and sat as a suppliant of Aryandes, asking him to take revenge for her, and putting forward this claim as her reason: that her son had died because he had taken the Persian side.

Chapter 166

1This Aryandes had been set over Egypt as governor by Cambyses. Later than these events he was destroyed for setting himself beside Darius. Darius wanted to leave a memorial of himself, the kind no other king had made. When Aryandes learned this and saw it, he copied him, and that was the pay he got for it.

2Darius had refined gold to its purest and struck it into the finest coin. Aryandes, ruling Egypt, did the same thing with silver, and to this day the Aryandic silver is the purest there is. When Darius learned that he was doing this, he brought against him another charge, that he was rebelling, and killed him.

Chapter 167

1At this time, this same Aryandes took pity on Pheretime and gave her the whole army of Egypt, both the foot soldiers and the fleet. He named Amasis, a Maraphian man, general of the foot soldiers, and Badres, of the Pasargadae clan, general of the fleet.

2Before he sent out the army, Aryandes sent a herald to Barca to ask who it was that had killed Arcesilaus. The Barcaeans all answered that they had done it themselves, for they had suffered many wrongs at his hands. When Aryandes heard this, he sent out the army with Pheretime.

3This was the pretext that was made the reason for the fleet. But in my judgment the army was sent out to conquer Libya. There are many and various nations of Libyans, and only a few of them were subject to the king; the greater part cared nothing at all about Darius.

Chapter 168

1The Libyans live as follows. Beginning from Egypt, the first Libyans who dwell there are the Adyrmachidae. In most of their customs they are like the Egyptians, but they wear the same dress as the other Libyans. Their women wear a bronze anklet on each leg. They let the hair of their heads grow long, and when a woman catches a louse from her own head, she bites it and throws it down.

2They are the only Libyans who do this, and they are the only ones who show their daughters, before marriage, to the king. If one of them pleases the king, it is he who makes her a woman. These Adyrmachidae reach from Egypt to the harbor called Plynus.

Chapter 169

1Next to them live the Giligamae, who occupy the country westward as far as the island of Aphrodite. In the country between lies the island of Platea, which the Cyrenaeans founded, and on the mainland the harbor of Menelaus and Aziris, where the Cyrenaeans used to live. The silphium begins from this point.

2The silphium runs from the island of Platea to the mouth of the Syrtis. These people have customs much like the others.

Chapter 170

1Next to the Giligamae westward live the Asbystae. They live inland above Cyrene. The Asbystae do not come down to the sea, for the Cyrenaeans hold the coast. They are the very best of the Libyans at driving four-horse chariots, and they try to follow most of the customs of the Cyrenaeans.

Chapter 171

1Next to the Asbystae westward live the Auschisae. They live inland above Barca and come down to the sea at the Euesperides. In the middle of the Auschisae's country live the Bacales, a small nation, who come down to the sea by the city of Taucheira in Barca's territory. They use the same customs as those who live above Cyrene.

Chapter 172

1West of the Auschisae live the Nasamones, a very large tribe. In summer they leave their sheep on the coast and go up to the district of Augila to gather the fruit of the palm trees. The palms there grow numerous and wide-spreading, and all of them bear fruit. When the Nasamones catch locusts, they dry them in the sun, pound them, and then sprinkle them on milk and drink.

2The Nasamones think that each man has many wives, and the men use the women in common. They do this in a way like the Massagetae: when they set up a staff, they have intercourse. When a Nasamon man marries for the first time, the custom is that on the first night the bride must go through all the dinner guests, sleeping with each one. Each guest who sleeps with her gives her a gift, bringing with him whatever he has from his house.

3They use these customs for oaths and fortune-telling. They swear by the men said to have been the most just and the best of their people, and they touch the tombs of those men as they swear. For fortune-telling they go again and again to the tombs of their ancestors, pray there, and then lie down and sleep on them. Whatever dream a man sees, he goes by that.

4They seal agreements of trust like this: one man gives drink from his own hand, and he drinks from the other man's hand. If they have no liquid at all, they take dust from the ground and lick it.

Chapter 173

1The Psylli are the neighbors of the Nasamones. The Psylli were wiped out in this way: the south wind blew and dried up all their pools of water. Their whole country lies inside the Syrtis, and it had no water at all. They took counsel together and marched with an army against the south wind. (I report here only what the Libyans say.) When they were in the sand, the south wind blew and buried them. When these people were gone, the Nasamones took over their country.

Chapter 174

1Beyond these, toward the south, the Garamantes live in the wild-beast country. They shun all human beings and all company with anyone. They own no weapon fit for war, and they do not know how to defend themselves.

Chapter 175

1The Garamantes live inland above the Nasamones. On the coast toward the west, next to the Nasamones, live the Macae. The Macae cut their hair: they let the middle of the hair grow long, but they cut the sides close to the skin. In war they wear the skins of ostriches in front of their bodies as armor.

2The river Cinyps flows through their country. It comes down from a hill called the Hill of the Graces and empties into the sea. This Hill of the Graces is thick with trees, while the rest of the Libya I described before is bare. The hill stands two hundred stades from the sea.

Chapter 176

1Next to the Macae live the Gindanes. Each of their women wears many bands of leather around her ankles, for a reason like this, as the story goes: she binds on one band for every man she has slept with. The woman who has the most bands is judged the best, because the most men have loved her.

Chapter 177

1The Lotus-eaters hold the headland that juts into the sea from the land of the Gindanes. They live by eating only the fruit of the lotus. The lotus fruit is about the size of a mastic berry, and its sweetness is like the date. The Lotus-eaters also make wine from this fruit.

Chapter 178

1Along the coast next to the Lotus-eaters live the Machlyes. They also use the lotus, but less than the people I mentioned before. Their country reaches down to a great river called the Triton. This river empties into a great lake called Tritonis. In this lake there is an island named Phla. It is said that an oracle told the Lacedaemonians to build a settlement on this island.

Chapter 179

1There is also this story that is told. When the Argo had been built for Jason at Pelion, Jason put on board her a second hecatomb and a bronze tripod as well, and sailed around the Peloponnese, wanting to reach Delphi.

2As he was sailing past Malea, a north wind caught him and carried him off toward Libya. Before he could see land, he came among the rocks of Lake Tritonis. When he was at a loss how to get out, the story says that Triton appeared to him and told Jason to give him the tripod. Triton said he would show them the way through and send them away unharmed.

3Jason obeyed. Then Triton showed them the channel through the rocks, and he set the tripod down in his own temple. Speaking an oracle through the tripod, he told the whole story to those with Jason: that when one of the descendants of the men who sailed on the Argo came to take back the tripod, then a hundred Greek cities would have to be settled around Lake Tritonis. The native Libyans heard this and hid the tripod.

Chapter 180

1Next to the Machlyes are the Auses. The Auses and the Machlyes both live around Lake Tritonis, and the Triton runs between them as their border. The Machlyes wear the hair on the back of the head long, and the Auses wear the front long.

2At a yearly festival of Athena, their girls split into two groups and fight one another with stones and sticks. They say they are performing the rites of their fathers for the native-born god whom we call Athena. The girls who die of their wounds they call false virgins.

3Before they let the girls fight, they do this together: they dress up the girl judged most beautiful each time with a Corinthian helmet and a full suit of Greek armor, put her on a chariot, and drive her around the lake in a circle.

4With what they dressed up the girls long ago, before Greek settlers came among them, I cannot say. But I suppose they dressed them in Egyptian arms. For I say that both the shield and the helmet came to the Greeks from Egypt.

5They say that Athena is the daughter of Poseidon and of Lake Tritonis, and that when she found fault with her father for something, she gave herself to Zeus, and Zeus made her his own daughter. That is what they say. The men use their women in common: they do not live together as husbands and wives, but mate like animals.

6When a woman's child has grown big and strong, the men come together at the same place every third month. Whichever man's house the child resembles, that man is counted its father.

Chapter 181

1These are the nomad Libyans who live along the coast. Above them, inland, lies the wild-beast country of Libya. Beyond that wild-beast country a ridge of sand runs on, stretching from Thebes in Egypt to the Pillars of Heracles.

2Along this ridge, at about ten days' journey apart, soft salt appears in great lumps forming hills. On the top of each hill, cold sweet water springs up from the middle of the salt. The people who live around these springs are the farthest out toward the desert, beyond the wild-beast country. First, ten days' journey from Thebes, live the Ammonians, who have the temple of the Theban Zeus. The image of Zeus in Thebes itself, as I said before, has a ram's face.

3The Ammonians also have another water, one that comes from a spring. At dawn it turns lukewarm. As the marketplace fills, it grows colder, and at midday it is very cold.

4At that hour they water their gardens. As the day goes down, the water loses its coldness, and at sunset it is lukewarm. It moves on into heat as night comes, and at midnight it boils up in a strong stream. Then midnight passes, and it cools until dawn. This spring is called by the name "the Sun."

Chapter 182

1After the Ammonians, along the sandy ridge, ten days' journey apart, there is a hill of salt like the Ammonian one, and water, and people live around it. This country is named Augila. The Nasamones come to this place to gather the fruit of the palms.

Chapter 183

1From Augila, ten days' journey farther, there is another hill of salt, and water, and many fruit-bearing palms, just as at the other places. People live there named the Garamantes, a very large and powerful nation. They lay earth on top of the salt and plant their seed in it.

2The shortest road from there is the one to the Lotus-eaters: the road to them takes thirty days. In it, too, are found the cattle that graze walking backward. They graze backward for this reason: their horns bend forward.

3That is why they back away as they graze. They cannot move forward, because their horns would strike into the ground. In nothing else do these cattle differ from other cattle, except in this and in the thickness and toughness of their hides.

4These Garamantes hunt the Cave-dwelling Ethiopians with their four-horse chariots. Of all the men we hear reports about, the Cave-dwelling Ethiopians are the fastest runners. The Cave-dwellers eat snakes and lizards and other reptiles of that kind. Their speech is like no other language; they squeak like bats.

Chapter 184

1From the Garamantes, ten days' journey farther, there is another hill of salt and water, and people live around it named the Atarantes. They are the only people we know of who have no personal names. The whole nation is named Atarantes, but no name belongs to any single one of them.

2These people curse the sun as it goes down. They also heap on it every shameful word of abuse, because its burning wears down both the people themselves and their whole country.

3Past them, ten days' journey farther, there is another hill of salt and water, and people live around it. Beside this salt stands a mountain named Atlas. It is narrow and round in every direction, and it is said to be so high that its peaks cannot be seen. Clouds never leave its peaks, in summer or in winter. The people of the country say this mountain is the pillar of the sky.

4These people took their name from this mountain, for they are called the Atlantes. They are said to eat nothing that has life in it and to see no dreams.

Chapter 185

1Up to these Atlantes I am able to list the names of the peoples who live along the ridge; past them I can no longer do so. The ridge runs on to the Pillars of Heracles and even beyond them.

2Along the ridge, ten days' journey on, there is a mine of salt, and people live there. All their houses are built out of blocks of salt. This part of Libya gets no rain. Walls made of salt could not last if rain fell.

3The salt dug there is both white and purple to look at. Beyond the ridge, toward the south and inland, the land of Libya is desert, waterless, grainless, rainless, and treeless, and it has no moisture at all.

Chapter 186

1So from Egypt to Lake Tritonis the Libyans are nomads who eat meat and drink milk. They never eat the flesh of cows, for the same reason the Egyptians do not, and they keep no pigs.

2The women of Cyrene too do not think it right to eat cows, because of Isis in Egypt. For her they keep fasts and festivals. The women of Barca not only do not eat cows; they do not eat pigs either.

Chapter 187

1That is how things stand. West of Lake Tritonis the Libyans are no longer nomads. They do not use the same customs, and they do not treat their children the way the nomads are used to treating them.

2The nomad Libyans—whether all of them do this I cannot say exactly, but many of them do—treat their children so: when a child is four years old, they burn the veins on the top of its head with a sheep's fleece, and some of them burn the veins at the temples. They do this so that the phlegm running down from the head will not harm the child all through its life.

3Because of this, they are said to be the healthiest of men. The Libyans really are the healthiest of all the people we know of. Whether it is because of this, I cannot say exactly, but healthy they certainly are. If a fit comes on a child while they are burning it, they have a remedy they have found: they sprinkle it with goat's urine and save it. I report here what the Libyans themselves say.

Chapter 188

1The nomads have these sacrifices. They cut off first one ear of the animal and throw it over their house. After doing this, they twist its neck. They sacrifice to the sun and to the moon, and to no others. All Libyans sacrifice to these two. But those who pasture their flocks around Lake Tritonis sacrifice chiefly to Athena, and after her to Triton and Poseidon.

Chapter 189

1The Greeks took the dress and the aegis for the statues of Athena from the Libyan women. Except that the Libyan women's dress is leather and the tassels on their aegises are leather straps, not snakes, everything else is adorned in the same way.

2The very name gives proof that the dress of the images of Athena came from Libya. The Libyan women throw over their dresses goatskins with the fleece on, fringed, and dyed red. From these goatskins the Greeks made the name "aegis."

3I myself think that the shrill cry used in sacred rites began here too, for the Libyan women make very good use of it. And the Greeks have also learned from the Libyans to yoke four horses together.

Chapter 190

1The nomads bury their dead the way the Greeks do, except the Nasamones. The Nasamones bury them sitting up. They watch that, when the soul leaves him, they set the dead man down sitting, so that he does not die lying on his back. Their houses are made of stalks of asphodel twisted around rush cords, and these houses can be carried from place to place. These people use customs like these.

Chapter 191

1West of the Triton river, next to the Auses, live Libyans who now till the land and hold that they own houses. They are named the Maxyes. They let the hair on the right side of their heads grow and cut the left side, and they smear their bodies with red ochre. They say they are descended from the men who came from Troy.

2This country, and the rest of Libya toward the west, is much richer in wild beasts and much thicker with trees than the country of the nomads.

3The eastern part of Libya, which the nomads pasture, is low and sandy as far as the Triton river. From there westward, the land of the farmers is very mountainous, thick with trees, and full of wild beasts.

4For in that country there are snakes of huge size and lions, and elephants and bears and asp snakes and horned donkeys, and dog-headed creatures, and headless men with eyes in their chests—as the Libyans say, at least—and wild men and wild women, and a great many other creatures besides, which cannot be doubted.

Chapter 192

1Among the nomads there are none of those creatures, but others like these: baboons, zorcas, bubals, and donkeys—not the horned kind but others that never drink (for they do not drink at all)—and oryxes, whose horns are used to make the arms of plows for the Phoenicians. This animal is about the size of an ox.

2There are also bassarias and hyenas and porcupines and wild sheep and dictyes and thoes and panthers and borues, and crocodiles as long as three cubits, land crocodiles, very like lizards, and ostriches, and small snakes, each having one horn. These are the creatures found there, and the kinds found in the rest of the country, except the deer and the wild pig. There is no deer and no wild pig in Libya at all.

3There are three kinds of mice there. Some are called two-footed mice, some zegeryes—that name is Libyan, and it means "hills" in the Greek language—and some echinees. There are also weasels born in the silphium, very much like the weasels of Tartessus. Such is the stock of creatures the land of the nomad Libyans holds, as far as we could learn by inquiring to the very limit.

Chapter 193

1Next to the Libyan Maxyes are the Zaueces. Their women drive the chariots in war.

Chapter 194

1Next to the Zaueces are the Gyzantes. In their country bees make much honey, but it is said that men craftsmen make a great deal more. All these people paint themselves with red ochre, and they eat monkeys. The monkeys are plentiful for them, all those that live in the mountains.

Chapter 195

1The Carthaginians say that an island called Cyrauis lies off this coast. It is two hundred stades long and narrow, so that you can cross to it from the mainland. It is full of olive trees and vines.

2There is a lake on it. The local girls bring up gold dust from the mud in it, using birds' feathers coated with pitch. I do not know whether this is true. I write what is reported. But it could well be so, since I myself saw pitch brought up from a lake and pool of water in Zacynthus as well.

3There are several lakes there. The largest is seventy feet across in every direction and two fathoms deep. They lower a pole into it with myrtle tied to the end. Then they bring up pitch on the myrtle. It has the smell of asphalt, but in other ways it is better than the pitch of Pieria. They pour it into a pit dug near the lake. When they have gathered a good amount, they then pour it from the pit into jars.

4Whatever falls into the lake goes underground and comes out in the sea. The sea is about four stades from the lake. So the stories about the island lying off Libya are likely to be true.

Chapter 196

1The Carthaginians also say this. There is a region of Libya with people living beyond the Pillars of Heracles. When the Carthaginians reach them and unload their cargo, they set it out in a row along the beach. Then they get back into their ships and raise a smoke. The locals see the smoke and come down to the sea. They set out gold in place of the cargo and then move back away from it.

2The Carthaginians come ashore and look at it. If the gold seems to them worth the cargo, they pick it up and leave. If it is not worth enough, they get back into their ships and wait. The locals come and add more gold to what they have already put down, until they persuade the Carthaginians. Neither side does wrong to the other.

3The Carthaginians do not touch the gold until it matches the value of the cargo. The locals do not touch the cargo until they have taken the gold.

Chapter 197

1These are the Libyans whose names we can give. Most of them pay no attention at all to the king of the Medes, either now or in the past.

2I can say this much more about this country. Four peoples live in it, and no more, as far as we know. Two of these peoples are native and two are not. The Libyans and the Ethiopians are native. The Libyans live in the north of Libya, the Ethiopians in the south. The Phoenicians and the Greeks are settlers.

Chapter 198

1In my view Libya does not have any great excellence of soil, so that it can be compared with Asia or Europe, except for the Cinyps alone. The land there has the same name as the river.

2This land is like the best land for growing the crop of Demeter, and it is nothing like the rest of Libya. It is black soil and full of springs. It does not suffer at all from drought, and it is not harmed when it drinks too much rain. This part of Libya does get rain. Its crop yields come out at the same measures as the land of Babylon. The land the Euesperites hold is also good.

3It produces at a hundredfold when it gives its very best. The land on the Cinyps produces at three hundredfold.

Chapter 199

1The Cyrenaean country too has three seasons in it that are worth wondering at. It is the highest part of this Libya that the nomads hold. First the crops by the sea ripen, to be reaped and gathered. When these have been collected, the middle crops in the lands above the coastal ones ripen, to be gathered. These they call the hills.

2When this middle crop has been gathered, the crop in the highest part of the land ripens and is ready. So by the time the first crop has been eaten and drunk up, the last one arrives at the same time. In this way the harvest keeps the Cyrenaeans busy for eight months. Let this much be said about that.

Chapter 200

1The Persians who were helping Pheretime were sent from Egypt by Aryandes. When they reached Barca, they laid siege to the city and demanded that the people hand over those responsible for the killing of Arcesilaus. But since the whole population shared in the guilt, they would not accept these terms.

2So they besieged Barca for nine months. They dug underground tunnels leading to the wall, and they made strong assaults. A bronze worker found the tunnels with a bronze shield. He thought of this trick. He carried the shield around inside the wall and held it against the ground of the city.

3Everywhere else the ground was silent where he held it, but over the places being dug the bronze of the shield rang out. There the Barcaeans dug against the tunnels and killed the Persians who were digging the ground. That was how the tunnels were found out. As for the assaults, the Barcaeans beat them off.

Chapter 201

1A great deal of time was wasted and many men fell on both sides, and no fewer among the Persians. Then Amasis, the general of the infantry, made the following plan. He learned that the Barcaeans could not be taken by force but could be taken by trickery. So he did this. At night he dug a wide trench and stretched weak timbers over it. On top of the timbers he heaped earth, making it level with the rest of the ground.

2At daybreak he invited the Barcaeans to talks. They were glad to listen, and it suited them to come to an agreement. The agreement they made was roughly this. They swore oaths over the hidden trench, that as long as this ground stayed as it was, the oath would stay in force. The Barcaeans agreed to pay tribute to the king, and the Persians agreed to make no other new move against the Barcaeans.

3After the oath, the Barcaeans trusted these terms. They themselves came out of the city, and they opened all the gates and let any of the enemy who wished enter the wall. The Persians broke through the hidden bridge and ran inside the wall. They broke the bridge they had made for this reason: to keep their oath truly. They had sworn to the Barcaeans that the oath would last forever, as long as the ground stayed as it was then. But once they broke the bridge, the oath no longer held.

Chapter 202

1Pheretime impaled the men most responsible among the Barcaeans, once the Persians handed them over. She put them in a circle around the wall. She cut off the breasts of their women and studded the wall with these as well.

2She ordered the Persians to carry off the rest of the Barcaeans as plunder, except for those of them who were Battiads and had no part in the killing. To these Pheretime entrusted the city.

Chapter 203

1The Persians then enslaved the rest of the Barcaeans and went back. When they reached the city of the Cyrenaeans, the Cyrenaeans let them pass through the city, to keep faith with an oracle.

2As the army was passing through, Badres, the general of the fleet, urged them to take the city. Amasis, the general of the infantry, would not allow it. He said they had been sent against Barca alone, a Greek city. So they passed through and camped on the ridge of Zeus Lycaeus. Then they regretted not taking Cyrene. They tried to march into it a second time, but the Cyrenaeans would not allow it.

3Though no one fought them, the Persians were seized by fear. They ran back about sixty stades and camped there. Once the army was settled in that place, a messenger came from Aryandes to summon them back. The Persians asked the Cyrenaeans to give them supplies for the journey, and they got them. Taking these, they set off for Egypt.

4From there on, the Libyans killed those of them who fell behind and straggled, for their clothing and their gear, until they reached Egypt.

Chapter 204

1This Persian army went the furthest into Libya, as far as Euesperides. Those of the Barcaeans they had taken as plunder were moved out of Egypt and settled by the king. King Darius gave them a village in Bactria to live in. They named this village Barca, and it was still inhabited in my time in the land of Bactria.

Chapter 205

1Pheretime too did not end her life well. As soon as she had punished the Barcaeans and returned from Libya to Egypt, she died a bad death. While she was still alive her body swarmed with worms. This shows that the gods resent human punishments that go too far. So this was the punishment that Pheretime, the daughter of Battus, inflicted on the Barcaeans. It was so harsh and so great.

Chapter 1

1After taking Babylon, Darius himself marched against the Scythians. For since Asia was bursting with men and vast revenues were coming in, Darius desired to punish the Scythians for the wrong they had begun when they invaded Media first and defeated those who opposed them in battle.

2For the Scythians, as I have said before, ruled upper Asia for twenty-eight years; they invaded Asia in their pursuit of the Cimmerians, and ended the power of the Medes, who were the rulers of Asia before the Scythians came.

3But when the Scythians had been away from their homes for twenty-eight years and returned to their country after so long an absence, as much trouble as their Median war awaited them. They found themselves opposed by a great force; for the Scythian women, when their husbands were away for so long, turned to their slaves.

Chapter 2

1Now the Scythians blind all their slaves, because of the milk they drink; and this is how they get it: taking tubes of bone very much like flutes, they insert these into the genitalia of the mares and blow into them, some blowing while others milk. According to them, their reason for doing this is that blowing makes the mare's veins swell and her udder drop.

2When done milking, they pour the milk into deep wooden buckets, and make their slaves stand around the buckets and shake the milk; they draw off what stands on the surface and value this most; what lies at the bottom is less valued. This is why the Scythians blind all prisoners whom they take: for they do not cultivate the soil, but are nomads.

Chapter 3

1So it came about that a younger generation grew up, born of these slaves and the women; and when the youths learned of their parentage, they came out to fight the Scythians returning from Media.

2First they barred the way to their country by digging a wide trench from the Tauric mountains to the broadest part of the Maeetian lake; and then, when the Scythians tried to force a passage, they camped opposite them and engaged them in battle.

3There were many fights, and the Scythians could gain no advantage; at last one of them said, “Men of Scythia, look at what we are doing! We are fighting our own slaves; they kill us, and we grow fewer; we kill them, and shall have fewer slaves.

4Now, then, my opinion is that we should drop our spears and bows, and meet them with horsewhips in our hands. As long as they see us armed, they imagine that they are our equals and the sons of our equals; let them see us with whips and no weapons, and they will perceive that they are our slaves; and taking this to heart they will not face our attack.”

Chapter 4

1The Scythians heard this and acted on it; and their enemies, stunned by what they saw, did not think of fighting, but fled. Thus, the Scythians ruled Asia and were driven out again by the Medes, and returned to their own country in such a way. Desiring to punish them for what they had done, Darius assembled an army against them.

Chapter 5

1The Scythians say that their nation is the youngest in the world, and that it came into being in this way. A man whose name was Targitaüs appeared in this country, which was then desolate. They say that his parents were Zeus and a daughter of the Borysthenes river (I do not believe the story, but it is told).

2Such was Targitaüs' lineage; and he had three sons: Lipoxaïs, Arpoxaïs, and Colaxaïs, youngest of the three.

3In the time of their rule (the story goes) certain implements—namely, a plough, a yoke, a sword, and a flask, all of gold—fell down from the sky into Scythia. The eldest of them, seeing these, approached them meaning to take them; but the gold began to burn as he neared, and he stopped.

4Then the second approached, and the gold did as before. When these two had been driven back by the burning gold, the youngest brother approached and the burning stopped, and he took the gold to his own house. In view of this, the elder brothers agreed to give all the royal power to the youngest.

Chapter 6

1Lipoxaïs, it is said, was the father of the Scythian clan called Auchatae; Arpoxaïs, the second brother, of those called Katiari and Traspians; the youngest, who was king, of those called Paralatae.

2All these together bear the name of Skoloti, after their king; “Scythians” is the name given them by Greeks. This, then, is the Scythians' account of their origin,

Chapter 7

1and they say that neither more nor less than a thousand years in all passed from the time of their first king Targitaüs to the entry of Darius into their country. The kings guard this sacred gold very closely, and every year offer solemn sacrifices of propitiation to it.

2Whoever falls asleep at this festival in the open air, having the sacred gold with him, is said by the Scythians not to live out the year; for which reason (they say) as much land as he can ride round in one day is given to him. Because of the great size of the country, the lordships that Colaxaïs established for his sons were three, one of which, where they keep the gold, was the greatest.

3Above and north of the neighbors of their country no one (they say) can see or travel further, because of showers of feathers; for earth and sky are full of feathers, and these hinder sight.

Chapter 8

1This is what the Scythians say about themselves and the country north of them. But the story told by the Greeks who live in Pontus is as follows. Heracles, driving the cattle of Geryones, came to this land, which was then desolate, but is now inhabited by the Scythians.

2Geryones lived west of the Pontus, settled in the island called by the Greeks Erythea, on the shore of Ocean near Gadira, outside the pillars of Heracles. As for Ocean, the Greeks say that it flows around the whole world from where the sun rises, but they cannot prove that this is so.

3Heracles came from there to the country now called Scythia, where, encountering wintry and frosty weather, he drew his lion's skin over him and fell asleep, and while he slept his mares, which were grazing yoked to the chariot, were spirited away by divine fortune.

Chapter 9

1When Heracles awoke, he searched for them, visiting every part of the country, until at last he came to the land called the Woodland, and there he found in a cave a creature of double form that was half maiden and half serpent; above the buttocks she was a woman, below them a snake.

2When he saw her he was astonished, and asked her if she had seen his mares straying; she said that she had them, and would not return them to him before he had intercourse with her; Heracles did, in hope of this reward.

3But though he was anxious to take the horses and go, she delayed returning them, so that she might have Heracles with her for as long as possible; at last she gave them back, telling him, “These mares came, and I kept them safe here for you, and you have paid me for keeping them, for I have three sons by you.

4Now tell me what I am to do when they are grown up: shall I keep them here (since I am queen of this country), or shall I send them away to you?” Thus she inquired, and then (it is said) Heracles answered:

5“When you see the boys are grown up, do as follows and you will do rightly: whichever of them you see bending this bow and wearing this belt so, make him an inhabitant of this land; but whoever falls short of these accomplishments that I require, send him away out of the country. Do so and you shall yourself have comfort, and my will shall be done.”

Chapter 10

1So he drew one of his bows (for until then Heracles always carried two), and showed her the belt, and gave her the bow and the belt, that had a golden vessel on the end of its clasp; and, having given them, he departed. But when the sons born to her were grown men, she gave them names, calling one of them Agathyrsus and the next Gelonus and the youngest Scythes; furthermore, remembering the instructions, she did as she was told.

2Two of her sons, Agathyrsus and Gelonus, were cast out by their mother and left the country, unable to fulfill the requirements set; but Scythes, the youngest, fulfilled them and so stayed in the land.

3From Scythes son of Heracles comes the whole line of the kings of Scythia; and it is because of the vessel that the Scythians carry vessels on their belts to this day. This alone his mother did for Scythes. This is what the Greek dwellers in Pontus say.

Chapter 11

1There is yet another story, to which account I myself especially incline. It is to this effect. The nomadic Scythians inhabiting Asia, when hard pressed in war by the Massagetae, fled across the Araxes river to the Cimmerian country (for the country which the Scythians now inhabit is said to have belonged to the Cimmerians before),

2and the Cimmerians, at the advance of the Scythians, deliberated as men threatened by a great force should. Opinions were divided; both were strongly held, but that of the princes was the more honorable; for the people believed that their part was to withdraw and that there was no need to risk their lives for the dust of the earth; but the princes were for fighting to defend their country against the attackers.

3Neither side could persuade the other, neither the people the princes nor the princes the people; the one party planned to depart without fighting and leave the country to their enemies, but the princes were determined to lie dead in their own country and not to flee with the people, for they considered how happy their situation had been and what ills were likely to come upon them if they fled from their native land.

4Having made up their minds, the princes separated into two equal bands and fought with each other until they were all killed by each other's hands; then the Cimmerian people buried them by the Tyras river, where their tombs are still to be seen, and having buried them left the land; and the Scythians came and took possession of the country left empty.

Chapter 12

1And to this day there are Cimmerian walls in Scythia, and a Cimmerian ferry, and there is a country Cimmeria and a strait named Cimmerian.

2Furthermore, it is evident that the Cimmerians in their flight from the Scythians into Asia also made a colony on the peninsula where the Greek city of Sinope has since been founded; and it is clear that the Scythians pursued them and invaded Media, missing their way;

3for the Cimmerians always fled along the coast, and the Scythians pursued with the Caucasus on their right until they came into the Median land, turning inland on their way. That is the other story current among Greeks and foreigners alike.

Chapter 13

1There is also a story related in a poem by Aristeas son of Caüstrobius, a man of Proconnesus. This Aristeas, possessed by Phoebus, visited the Issedones; beyond these (he said) live the one-eyed Arimaspians, beyond whom are the griffins that guard gold, and beyond these again the Hyperboreans, whose territory reaches to the sea.

2Except for the Hyperboreans, all these nations (and first the Arimaspians) are always at war with their neighbors; the Issedones were pushed from their lands by the Arimaspians, and the Scythians by the Issedones, and the Cimmerians, living by the southern sea, were hard pressed by the Scythians and left their country. Thus Aristeas' story does not agree with the Scythian account about this country.

Chapter 14

1Where Aristeas who wrote this came from, I have already said; I will tell the story that I heard about him at Proconnesus and Cyzicus. It is said that this Aristeas, who was as well-born as any of his townsfolk, went into a fuller's shop at Proconnesus and there died; the owner shut his shop and went away to tell the dead man's relatives,

2and the report of Aristeas' death being spread about in the city was disputed by a man of Cyzicus, who had come from the town of Artace, and said that he had met Aristeas going toward Cyzicus and spoken with him. While he argued vehemently, the relatives of the dead man came to the fuller's shop with all that was necessary for burial;

3but when the place was opened, there was no Aristeas there, dead or alive. But in the seventh year after that, Aristeas appeared at Proconnesus and made that poem which the Greeks now call the Arimaspea, after which he vanished once again.

Chapter 15

1Such is the tale told in these two towns. But this, I know, happened to the Metapontines in Italy, two hundred and forty years after the second disappearance of Aristeas, as reckoning made at Proconnesus and Metapontum shows me:

2Aristeas, so the Metapontines say, appeared in their country and told them to set up an altar to Apollo, and set beside it a statue bearing the name of Aristeas the Proconnesian; for, he said, Apollo had come to their country alone of all Italian lands, and he—the man who was now Aristeas, but then when he followed the god had been a crow—had come with him.

3After saying this, he vanished. The Metapontines, so they say, sent to Delphi and asked the god what the vision of the man could mean; and the Pythian priestess told them to obey the vision, saying that their fortune would be better.

4They did as instructed. And now there stands beside the image of Apollo a statue bearing the name of Aristeas; a grove of bay-trees surrounds it; the image is set in the marketplace. Let it suffice that I have said this much about Aristeas.

Chapter 16

1As for the land of which my history has begun to speak, no one exactly knows what lies north of it; for I can find out from no one who claims to know as an eyewitness. For even Aristeas, whom I recently mentioned—even he did not claim to have gone beyond the Issedones, even though a poet; but he spoke by hearsay of what lay north, saying that the Issedones had told him.

2But all that we have been able to learn for certain by report of the farthest lands shall be told.

Chapter 17

1North of the port of the Borysthenites, which lies midway along the coast of Scythia, the first inhabitants are the Callippidae, who are Scythian Greeks; and beyond them another tribe called Alazones; these and the Callippidae, though in other ways they live like the Scythians, plant and eat grain, onions, garlic, lentils, and millet.

2Above the Alazones live Scythian farmers, who plant grain not to eat but to sell; north of these, the Neuri; north of the Neuri, the land is uninhabited so far as we know.

Chapter 18

1These are the tribes by the Hypanis river, west of the Borysthenes. But on the other side of the Borysthenes, the tribe nearest to the sea is the tribe of the Woodlands; and north of these live Scythian farmers, whom the Greek colonists on the Hypanis river (who call themselves Olbiopolitae) call Borystheneïtae.

2These farming Scythians inhabit a land stretching east a three days' journey to a river called Panticapes, and north as far as an eleven days' voyage up the Borysthenes; and north of these the land is desolate for a long way;

3after the desolation is the country of the Man-eaters, who are a nation apart and by no means Scythian; and beyond them is true desolation, where no nation of men lives, as far as we know.

Chapter 19

1But to the east of these farming Scythians, across the Panticapes river, you are in the land of nomadic Scythians, who plant nothing, nor plough; and all these lands except the Woodlands are bare of trees. These nomads inhabit a country to the east that stretches fourteen days' journey to the Gerrus river.

Chapter 20

1Across the Gerrus are those lands called Royal, where the best and most numerous of the Scythians are, who consider all other Scythians their slaves; their territory stretches south to the Tauric land, and east to the trench that was dug by the sons of the blind men, and to the port called The Cliffs on the Maeetian lake; and part of it stretches to the Tanaïs river.

2North of the Royal Scythians live the Blackcloaks, who are of another and not a Scythian stock; and beyond the Blackcloaks the land is all marshes and uninhabited by men, so far as we know.

Chapter 21

1Across the Tanaïs it is no longer Scythia; the first of the districts belongs to the Sauromatae, whose country begins at the inner end of the Maeetian lake and stretches fifteen days' journey north, and is quite bare of both wild and cultivated trees. Above these in the second district, the Budini inhabit a country thickly overgrown with trees of all kinds.

Chapter 22

1North of the Budini the land is uninhabited for seven days' journey; after this desolation, and somewhat more toward the east wind, live the Thyssagetae, a numerous and a separate nation, who live by hunting.

2Adjoining these and in the same country live the people called Iyrkae; these also live by hunting, in the way that I will describe. The hunter climbs a tree, and sits there concealed; for trees grow thickly all over the land; and each man has his horse at hand, trained to flatten on its belly for the sake of lowness, and his dog; and when he sees the quarry from the tree, he shoots with the bow and mounts his horse and pursues it, and the dog follows close behind.

3Beyond these and somewhat to the east live Scythians again, who revolted from the Royal Scythians and came to this country.

Chapter 23

1As for the countryside of these Scythians, all the land mentioned up to this point is level and its soil deep; but thereafter it is stony and rough.

2After a long journey through this rough country, there are men inhabiting the foothills of high mountains, who are said to be bald from birth (male and female alike) and snub-nosed and with long beards; they speak their own language, and wear Scythian clothing, and their food comes from trees.

3The tree by which they live is called “Pontic”; it is about the size of a fig-tree, and bears a fruit as big as a bean, with a stone in it. When this fruit is ripe, they strain it through cloth, and a thick black liquid comes from it, which they call “aschu”; they lick this up or drink it mixed with milk, and from the thickest lees of it they make cakes, and eat them.

4They have few cattle, for the pasture in their land is not good. They each live under a tree, covering it in winter with a white felt cloth, but using no felt in summer.

5These people are wronged by no man, for they are said to be sacred; nor have they any weapon of war. They judge the quarrels between their neighbors; furthermore, whatever banished man has taken refuge with them is wronged by no one. They are called Argippeans.

Chapter 24

1Now as far as the land of these bald men, we have full knowledge of the country and the nations on the near side of them; for some of the Scythians make their way to them, from whom it is easy to get knowledge, and from some of the Greeks, too, from the Borysthenes port and the other ports of Pontus; such Scythians as visit them transact their business with seven interpreters and in seven languages.

Chapter 25

1As far as these men this country is known, then, but what lies north of the bald men no one can say with exact knowledge; for high and impassable mountains bar the way, and no one crosses them. These bald men say (although I do not believe them) that the mountains are inhabited by men with goats' feet, and that beyond these are men who sleep for six months of the twelve. This I cannot accept as true at all.

2But the country east of the bald-heads is known for certain to be inhabited by the Issedones; however, of what lies north either of the bald-heads or the Issedones we have no knowledge, except what comes from the report of these latter.

Chapter 26

1It is said to be the custom of the Issedones that, whenever a man's father dies, all the nearest of kin bring beasts of the flock and, having killed these and cut up the flesh, they also cut up the dead father of their host, and set out all the flesh mixed together for a feast.

2As for his head, they strip it bare and clean and gild it, and keep it for a sacred relic, to which they offer solemn sacrifice yearly. Every son does this for his father, just like the Greeks in their festivals in honor of the dead. In other respects, these are said to be a law-abiding people, too, and the women to have equal power with the men.

Chapter 27

1Of these too, then, we have knowledge; but as for what is north of them, it is from the Issedones that the tale comes of the one-eyed men and the griffins that guard gold; this is told by the Scythians, who have heard it from them; and we have taken it as true from the Scythians, and call these people by the Scythian name, Arimaspians; for in the Scythian tongue “arima” is one, and “spou” is the eye.

Chapter 28

1All the aforesaid country is exceedingly cold: for eight months of every year there is unbearable frost, and during these you do not make mud by pouring out water but by lighting a fire; the sea freezes, as does all the Cimmerian Bosporus; and the Scythians living on this side of the trench lead armies over the ice, and drive their wagons across to the land of the Sindi.

2So it is winter for eight months, and cold in that country for the four that remain. Here, there is a different sort of winter than the winters in other lands: for in the season for rain scarcely any falls, but all summer it rains unceasingly;

3and when there are thunderstorms in other lands, here there are none, but in summer there are plenty of them; if there is a thunderstorm in winter they are apt to wonder at it as at a portent. And so, too, if there is an earthquake summer or winter, it is considered a portent in Scythia.

4Horses have the endurance to bear the Scythian winter; mules and asses cannot bear it at all; and yet in other lands, while asses and mules can endure frost, horses that stand in it are frostbitten.

Chapter 29

1And in my opinion it is for this reason that the hornless kind of cattle grow no horns in Scythia. A verse of Homer in the Odyssey attests to my opinion: “Libya, the land where lambs are born with horns on their foreheads,” in which it is correctly observed that in hot countries the horns grow quickly, whereas in very cold countries beasts hardly grow horns, or not at all.

Chapter 30

1In Scythia, then, this happens because of the cold. But I think it strange (for it was always the way of my history to investigate excurses) that in the whole of Elis no mules can be conceived although the country is not cold, nor is there any evident cause. The Eleans themselves say that it is because of a curse that mules cannot be conceived among them;

2but whenever the season is at hand for the mares to conceive, they drive them into the countries of their neighbors, and then send the asses after them, until the mares are pregnant, and then they drive them home again.

Chapter 31

1But regarding the feathers of which the Scythians say that the air is full, so thickly that no one can see or traverse the land beyond, I have this opinion. North of that country snow falls continually, though less in summer than in winter, as is to be expected.

2Whoever has seen snow falling thickly near him knows himself my meaning; for snow is like feathers; and because of the winter, which is as I have said, the regions to the north of this continent are uninhabited. I think therefore that in this story of feathers the Scythians and their neighbors only speak of snow figuratively. So, then, I have spoken of those parts that are said to be most distant.

Chapter 32

1Concerning the Hyperborean people, neither the Scythians nor any other inhabitants of these lands tell us anything, except perhaps the Issedones. And, I think, even they say nothing; for if they did, then the Scythians, too, would have told, just as they tell of the one-eyed men. But Hesiod speaks of Hyperboreans, and Homer too in his poem The Heroes' Sons, if that is truly the work of Homer.

Chapter 33

1But the Delians say much more about them than any others do. They say that offerings wrapped in straw are brought from the Hyperboreans to Scythia; when these have passed Scythia, each nation in turn receives them from its neighbors until they are carried to the Adriatic sea, which is the most westerly limit of their journey;

2from there, they are brought on to the south, the people of Dodona being the first Greeks to receive them. From Dodona they come down to the Melian gulf, and are carried across to Euboea, and one city sends them on to another until they come to Carystus; after this, Andros is left out of their journey, for Carystians carry them to Tenos, and Tenians to Delos.

3Thus (they say) these offerings come to Delos. But on the first journey, the Hyperboreans sent two maidens bearing the offerings, to whom the Delians give the names Hyperoche and Laodice, and five men of their people with them as escort for safe conduct, those who are now called Perpherees and greatly honored at Delos.

4But when those whom they sent never returned, they took it amiss that they should be condemned always to be sending people and not getting them back, and so they carry the offerings, wrapped in straw, to their borders, and tell their neighbors to send them on from their own country to the next;

5and the offerings, it is said, come by this conveyance to Delos. I can say of my own knowledge that there is a custom like these offerings; namely, that when the Thracian and Paeonian women sacrifice to the Royal Artemis, they have straw with them while they sacrifice.

Chapter 34

1I know that they do this. The Delian girls and boys cut their hair in honor of these Hyperborean maidens, who died at Delos; the girls before their marriage cut off a tress and lay it on the tomb, wound around a spindle

2(this tomb is at the foot of an olive-tree, on the left hand of the entrance of the temple of Artemis); the Delian boys twine some of their hair around a green stalk, and lay it on the tomb likewise.

Chapter 35

1In this way, then, these maidens are honored by the inhabitants of Delos. These same Delians relate that two virgins, Arge and Opis, came from the Hyperboreans by way of the aforesaid peoples to Delos earlier than Hyperoche and Laodice;

2these latter came to bring to Eileithyia the tribute which they had agreed to pay for easing child-bearing; but Arge and Opis, they say, came with the gods themselves, and received honors of their own from the Delians.

3For the women collected gifts for them, calling upon their names in the hymn made for them by Olen of Lycia; it was from Delos that the islanders and Ionians learned to sing hymns to Opis and Arge, calling upon their names and collecting gifts (this Olen, after coming from Lycia, also made the other and ancient hymns that are sung at Delos).

4Furthermore, they say that when the thighbones are burnt in sacrifice on the altar, the ashes are all cast on the burial-place of Opis and Arge, behind the temple of Artemis, looking east, nearest the refectory of the people of Ceos.

Chapter 36

1I have said this much of the Hyperboreans, and let it suffice; for I do not tell the story of that Abaris, alleged to be a Hyperborean, who carried the arrow over the whole world, fasting all the while. But if there are men beyond the north wind, then there are others beyond the south.

2And I laugh to see how many have before now drawn maps of the world, not one of them reasonably; for they draw the world as round as if fashioned by compasses, encircled by the Ocean river, and Asia and Europe of a like extent. For myself, I will in a few words indicate the extent of the two, and how each should be drawn.

Chapter 37

1The land where the Persians live extends to the southern sea which is called Red; beyond these to the north are the Medes, and beyond the Medes the Saspires, and beyond the Saspires the Colchians, whose country extends to the northern sea into which the Phasis river flows; so these four nations live between the one sea and the other.

Chapter 38

1But west of this region two peninsulas stretch out from it into the sea, which I will now describe.

2On the north side one of the peninsulas begins at the Phasis and stretches seaward along the Pontus and the Hellespont, as far as Sigeum in the Troad; on the south side, the same peninsula has a seacoast beginning at the Myriandric gulf that is near Phoenicia, and stretching seaward as far as the Triopian headland. On this peninsula live thirty nations.

Chapter 39

1This is the first peninsula. But the second, beginning with Persia, stretches to the Red Sea, and is Persian land; and next, the neighboring land of Assyria; and after Assyria, Arabia; this peninsula ends (not truly but only by common consent) at the Arabian Gulf, to which Darius brought a canal from the Nile.

2Now from the Persian country to Phoenicia there is a wide and vast tract of land; and from Phoenicia this peninsula runs beside our sea by way of the Syrian Palestine and Egypt, which is at the end of it; in this peninsula there are just three nations.

Chapter 40

1So much for the parts of Asia west of the Persians. But what is beyond the Persians, and Medes, and Saspires, and Colchians, east and toward the rising sun, this is bounded on the one hand by the Red Sea, and to the north by the Caspian Sea and the Araxes river, which flows toward the sun's rising.

2As far as India, Asia is an inhabited land; but thereafter, all to the east is desolation, nor can anyone say what kind of land is there.

Chapter 41

1Such is Asia, and such its extent. But Libya is on this second peninsula; for Libya comes next after Egypt. The Egyptian part of this peninsula is narrow; for from our sea to the Red Sea it is a distance of a hundred and twenty-five miles; that is, a thousand stades; but after this narrow part, the peninsula which is called Libya is very broad.

Chapter 42

1I wonder, then, at those who have mapped out and divided the world into Libya, Asia, and Europe; for the difference between them is great, seeing that in length Europe stretches along both the others together, and it appears to me to be wider beyond all comparison.

2For Libya shows clearly that it is bounded by the sea, except where it borders on Asia. Necos king of Egypt first discovered this and made it known. When he had finished digging the canal which leads from the Nile to the Arabian Gulf, he sent Phoenicians in ships, instructing them to sail on their return voyage past the Pillars of Heracles until they came into the northern sea and so to Egypt.

3So the Phoenicians set out from the Red Sea and sailed the southern sea; whenever autumn came they would put in and plant the land in whatever part of Libya they had reached, and there await the harvest;

4then, having gathered the crop, they sailed on, so that after two years had passed, it was in the third that they rounded the pillars of Heracles and came to Egypt. There they said (what some may believe, though I do not) that in sailing around Libya they had the sun on their right hand.

Chapter 43

1Thus was the first knowledge of Libya gained. The next story is that of the Carthaginians: for as for Sataspes son of Teaspes, an Achaemenid, he did not sail around Libya, although he was sent for that purpose; but he feared the length and loneliness of the voyage and so returned without accomplishing the task laid upon him by his mother.

2For he had raped the virgin daughter of Zopyrus son of Megabyzus; and when on this charge he was to be impaled by King Xerxes, Sataspes' mother, who was Darius' sister, interceded for his life, saying that she would impose a heavier punishment on him than Xerxes;

3for he would be compelled to sail around Libya, until he completed his voyage and came to the Arabian Gulf. Xerxes agreed to this, and Sataspes went to Egypt where he received a ship and a crew from the Egyptians, and sailed past the Pillars of Heracles.

4Having sailed out beyond them, and rounded the Libyan promontory called Solois, he sailed south; but when he had been many months sailing over the sea, and always more before him, he turned back and made sail for Egypt.

5Coming to King Xerxes from there, he related in his narrative that, when he was farthest distant, he sailed by a country of little men, who wore palm-leaf clothing; these, whenever he and his men put in to land with their ship, left their towns and fled to the hills; he and his men did no harm when they landed, and took nothing from the people except cattle.

6As to his not sailing completely around Libya, the reason (he said) was that the ship could move no farther, but was stopped. But Xerxes did not believe that Sataspes spoke the truth, and, as the task appointed was unfulfilled, he impaled him, punishing him on the charge first brought against him.

7This Sataspes had a eunuch, who as soon as he heard of his master's death escaped to Samos, with a great hoard of wealth, of which a man of Samos got possession. I know the man's name but deliberately omit it.

Chapter 44

1But as to Asia, most of it was discovered by Darius. There is a river, Indus, second of all rivers in the production of crocodiles. Darius, desiring to know where this Indus empties into the sea, sent ships manned by Scylax, a man of Caryanda, and others whose word he trusted;

2these set out from the city of Caspatyrus and the Pactyic country, and sailed down the river toward the east and the sunrise until they came to the sea; and voyaging over the sea west, they came in the thirtieth month to that place from which the Egyptian king sent the above-mentioned Phoenicians to sail around Libya.

3After this circumnavigation, Darius subjugated the Indians and made use of this sea. Thus it was discovered that Asia, except the parts toward the rising sun, was in other respects like Libya.

Chapter 45

1But it is plain that none have obtained knowledge of Europe's eastern or northern regions, so as to be able say if it is bounded by seas; its length is known to be enough to stretch along both Asia and Libya.

2I cannot guess for what reason the earth, which is one, has three names, all women's, and why the boundary lines set for it are the Egyptian Nile river and the Colchian Phasis river (though some say that the Maeetian Tanaïs river and the Cimmerian Ferries are boundaries); and I cannot learn the names of those who divided the world, or where they got the names which they used.

3For Libya is said by most Greeks to be named after a native woman of that name, and Asia after the wife of Prometheus; yet the Lydians claim a share in the latter name, saying that Asia was not named after Prometheus' wife Asia, but after Asies, the son of Cotys, who was the son of Manes, and that from him the Asiad clan at Sardis also takes its name.

4But as for Europe, no men have any knowledge whether it is bounded by seas or not, or where it got its name, nor is it clear who gave the name, unless we say that the land took its name from the Tyrian Europa, having been (it would seem) before then nameless like the rest.

5But it is plain that this woman was of Asiatic birth, and never came to this land which the Greeks now call Europe, but only from Phoenicia to Crete and from Crete to Lycia. Thus much I have said of these matters, and let it suffice; we will use the names established by custom.

Chapter 46

1Nowhere are men so ignorant as in the lands by the Euxine Pontus (excluding the Scythian nation) into which Darius led his army. For we cannot show that any nation within the region of the Pontus has any cleverness, nor do we know of (overlooking the Scythian nation and Anacharsis) any notable man born there.

2But the Scythian race has made the cleverest discovery that we know in what is the most important of all human affairs; I do not praise the Scythians in all respects, but in this, the most important: that they have contrived that no one who attacks them can escape, and no one can catch them if they do not want to be found.

3For when men have no established cities or forts, but are all nomads and mounted archers, not living by tilling the soil but by raising cattle and carrying their dwellings on wagons, how can they not be invincible and unapproachable?

Chapter 47

1They have made this discovery in a land that suits their purpose and has rivers that are their allies; for their country is flat and grassy and well-watered, and rivers run through it not very many fewer in number than the canals of Egypt.

2As many of them as are famous and can be entered from the sea, I shall name. There is the Ister, which has five mouths, and the Tyras, and Hypanis, and Borysthenes, and Panticapes, and Hypacuris, and Gerrhus, and Tanaïs. Their courses are as I shall indicate.

Chapter 48

1The Ister, the greatest of all rivers which we know, flows with the same volume in summer and winter; it is most westerly Scythian river of all, and the greatest because other rivers are its tributaries.

2Those that make it great, five flowing through the Scythian country, are these: the river called by Scythians Porata and by Greeks Pyretus, and besides this the Tiarantus, the Ararus, the Naparis, and the Ordessus.

3The first-named of these rivers is a great stream flowing east and uniting its waters with the Ister; the second, the Tiarantus, is more westerly and smaller; the Ararus, Naparis, and Ordessus flow between these two and pour their waters into the Ister.

Chapter 49

1These are the native-born Scythian rivers that help to swell it; but the Maris river, which commingles with the Ister, flows from the Agathyrsi. The Atlas, Auras, and Tibisis, three other great rivers that pour into it, flow north from the heights of Haemus. The Athrys, the Noes, and the Artanes flow into the Ister from the country of the Crobyzi in Thrace; the Cius river, which cuts through the middle of Haemus, from the Paeonians and the mountain range of Rhodope.

2The Angrus river flows north from Illyria into the Triballic plain and the Brongus river, and the Brongus into the Ister, which receives these two great rivers into itself. The Carpis and another river called Alpis also flow northward, from the country north of the Ombrici, to flow into it;

3for the Ister traverses the whole of Europe, rising among the Celts, who are the most westerly dwellers in Europe, except for the Cynetes, and flowing thus clean across Europe it issues forth along the borders of Scythia.

Chapter 50

1With these rivers aforesaid, and many others, too, as its tributaries, the Ister becomes the greatest river of all, while river for river the Nile surpasses it in volume, since that owes its volume of water to no tributary river or spring.

2But the Ister is always the same height in summer and winter, the reason for which, I think, is this. In winter it is of its customary size, or only a little greater than is natural to it, for in that country in winter there is very little rain, but snow everywhere.

3In the summer, the abundant snow that has fallen in winter melts and pours from all sides into the Ister; so this snow-melt pours into the river and helps to swell it and much violent rain besides, as the summer is the season of rain.

4And in proportion as the sun draws to itself more water in summer than in winter, the water that commingles with the Ister is many times more abundant in summer than it is in winter; these opposites keep the balance true, so that the volume of the river appears always the same.

Chapter 51

1One of the rivers of the Scythians, then, is the Ister. The next is the Tyras; this comes from the north, flowing at first out of a great lake, which is the boundary between the Scythian and the Neurian countries; at the mouth of the river there is a settlement of Greeks, who are called Tyritae.

Chapter 52

1The third river is the Hypanis; this comes from Scythia, flowing out of a great lake, around which wild, white horses graze. This lake is truly called the mother of the Hypanis.

2Here, then, the Hypanis rises; for five days' journey its waters are shallow and still sweet; after that for four days' journey seaward it is amazingly bitter,

3for a spring runs into it so bitter that although its volume is small its admixture taints the Hypanis, one of the few great rivers of the world. This spring is on the border between the farming Scythians and the Alazones; the name of it and of the place where it rises is in Scythian Exampaeus; in the Greek tongue, Sacred Ways.

4The Tyras and the Hypanis draw near together in the Alazones' country; after that they flow apart, the intervening space growing wider.

Chapter 53

1The fourth is the Borysthenes river. This is the next greatest after the Ister, and the most productive, in our judgment, not only of the Scythian but of all rivers, except the Egyptian Nile, with which no other river can be compared.

2But of the rest, the Borysthenes is the most productive; it provides the finest and best-nurturing pasture lands for beasts, and the fish in it are beyond all in their excellence and abundance. Its water is most sweet to drink, flowing with a clear current, whereas the other rivers are turbid. There is excellent soil on its banks, and very rich grass where the land is not planted;

3and self-formed crusts of salt abound at its mouth; it provides great spineless fish, called sturgeons, for salting, and many other wonderful things besides.

4Its course is from the north, and it is known as far as the Gerrhan land; that is, for forty days' voyage; beyond that, no one can say through what nations it flows; but it is plain that it flows through desolate country to the land of the farming Scythians, who live beside it for a ten days' voyage.

5This is the only river, besides the Nile, whose source I cannot identify; nor, I think, can any Greek. When the Borysthenes comes near the sea, the Hypanis mingles with it, running into the same marsh;

6the land between these rivers, where the land projects like a ship's beak, is called Hippolaus' promontory; a temple of Demeter stands there. The settlement of the Borystheneïtae is beyond the temple, on the Hypanis.

Chapter 54

1This is the produce of these rivers, and after these there is a fifth river called Panticapas; this also flows from the north out of a lake, and the land between it and the Borysthenes is inhabited by the farming Scythians; it flows into the woodland country, after passing which it mingles with the Borysthenes.

Chapter 55

1The sixth is the Hypacuris river, which rises from a lake, and flowing through the midst of the nomadic Scythians flows out near the city of Carcine, bordering on its right the Woodland and the region called the Racecourse of Achilles.

Chapter 56

1The seventh river, the Gerrhus, separates from the Borysthenes at about the place which is the end of our knowledge of that river; at this place it separates, and has the same name as the place itself, Gerrhus; then in its course to the sea it divides the country of the Nomads and the country of the Royal Scythians, and empties into the Hypacuris.

Chapter 57

1The eighth is the Tanaïs river; in its upper course, this begins by flowing out of a great lake, and enters a yet greater lake called the Maeetian, which divides the Royal Scythians from the Sauromatae; another river, called Hyrgis, is a tributary of this Tanaïs.

Chapter 58

1These are the rivers of note with which the Scythians are provided. For rearing cattle, the grass growing in Scythia is the most productive of bile of all pastures which we know; that this is so can be judged by opening up the bodies of the cattle.

Chapter 59

1The most important things are thus provided them. It remains now to show the customs which are established among them. The only gods whom they propitiate are these: Hestia in particular, and secondly Zeus and Earth, whom they believe to be the wife of Zeus; after these, Apollo, and the Heavenly Aphrodite, and Heracles, and Ares. All the Scythians worship these as gods; the Scythians called Royal sacrifice to Poseidon also.

2In the Scythian tongue, Hestia is called Tabiti; Zeus (in my judgment most correctly so called) Papaeus; Earth is Apia; Apollo Goetosyrus; the Heavenly Aphrodite Argimpasa; Poseidon Thagimasadas. It is their practice to make images and altars and shrines for Ares, but for no other god.

Chapter 60

1In all their sacred rites they follow the same method of sacrifice; this is how it is offered. The victim stands with its forefeet shackled together; the sacrificer stands behind the beast, and throws it down by pulling the end of the rope;

2as the victim falls, he invokes whatever god it is to whom he sacrifices. Then, throwing a noose around the beast's neck, he thrusts in a stick and twists it and so strangles the victim, lighting no fire nor offering the first-fruits, nor pouring any libation; and having strangled and skinned the beast, he sets about cooking it.

Chapter 61

1Now as the Scythian land is quite bare of wood, this is how they contrive to cook the meat. When they have skinned the victims, they strip the meat from the bones and throw it into the cauldrons of the country, if they have them: these are most like Lesbian bowls, except that they are much bigger; they throw the meat into these, then, and cook it by lighting a fire beneath with the bones of the victims. But if they have no cauldron, then they put all the meat into the victims' stomachs, adding water, and make a fire of the bones beneath,

2which burn nicely; the stomachs easily hold the meat when it is stripped from the bones; thus a steer serves to cook itself, and every other victim does likewise. When the flesh is cooked, the sacrificer takes the first-fruits of the flesh and the entrails and casts them before him. They use all grazing animals for sacrifice, but mainly horses.

Chapter 62

1This is their way of sacrificing to other gods and these are the beasts offered; but their sacrifices to Ares are of this sort. Every district in each of the governments has a structure sacred to Ares; namely, a pile of bundles of sticks three eighths of a mile wide and long, but of a lesser height, on the top of which there is a flattened four-sided surface; three of its sides are sheer, but the fourth can be ascended.

2Every year a hundred and fifty wagon-loads of sticks are heaped upon this; for the storms of winter always make it sink down. On this sacred pile an ancient scimitar of iron is set for each people: their image of Ares. They bring yearly sacrifice of sheep and goats and horses to this scimitar, offering to these symbols even more than they do to the other gods.

3Of enemies that they take alive, they sacrifice one man in every hundred, not as they sacrifice sheep and goats, but differently. They pour wine on the men's heads and cut their throats over a bowl; then they carry the blood up on to the pile of sticks and pour it on the scimitar.

4They carry the blood up above, but down below by the sacred pile they cut off all the slain men's right arms and hands and throw these into the air, and depart when they have sacrificed the rest of the victims; the arm lies where it has fallen, and the body apart from it.

Chapter 63

1These then are their established rites of sacrifice; but these Scythians make no offerings of swine; nor are they willing for the most part to rear them in their country.

Chapter 64

1As to war, these are their customs. A Scythian drinks the blood of the first man whom he has taken down. He carries the heads of all whom he has slain in the battle to his king; for if he brings a head, he receives a share of the booty taken, but not otherwise.

2He scalps the head by making a cut around it by the ears, then grasping the scalp and shaking the head off. Then he scrapes out the flesh with the rib of a steer, and kneads the skin with his hands, and having made it supple he keeps it for a hand towel, fastening it to the bridle of the horse which he himself rides, and taking pride in it; for he who has most scalps for hand towels is judged the best man.

3Many Scythians even make garments to wear out of these scalps, sewing them together like coats of skin. Many too take off the skin, nails and all, from their dead enemies' right hands, and make coverings for their quivers;the human skin was, as it turned out, thick and shining, the brightest and whitest skin of all, one might say.

4Many flay the skin from the whole body, too, and carry it about on horseback stretched on a wooden frame.

Chapter 65

1The heads themselves, not all of them but those of their bitterest enemies, they treat this way. Each saws off all the part beneath the eyebrows, and cleans the rest. If he is a poor man, then he covers the outside with a piece of raw hide, and so makes use of it; but if he is rich, he covers the head with the raw hide, and gilds the inside of it and uses it for a drinking-cup.

2Such a cup a man also makes out of the head of his own kinsman with whom he has been feuding, and whom he has defeated in single combat before the king; and if guests whom he honors visit him he will serve them with these heads, and show how the dead were his kinsfolk who fought him and were beaten by him; this they call manly valor.

Chapter 66

1Furthermore, once a year each governor of a province brews a bowl of wine in his own province, which those Scythians who have slain enemies drink; those who have not achieved this do not taste this wine but sit apart dishonored; and this they consider a very great disgrace; but as many as have slain not one but many enemies have two cups apiece and drink out of both.

Chapter 67

1There are many diviners among the Scythians, who divine by means of many willow wands as I will show. They bring great bundles of wands, which they lay on the ground and unfasten, and utter their divinations as they lay the rods down one by one; and while still speaking, they gather up the rods once more and place them together again;

2this manner of divination is hereditary among them. The Enarees, who are hermaphrodites, say that Aphrodite gave them the art of divination, which they practise by means of lime-tree bark. They cut this bark into three portions, and prophesy while they braid and unbraid these in their fingers.

Chapter 68

1Whenever the king of the Scythians falls ill, he sends for the three most reputable diviners, who prophesy in the aforesaid way; and they generally tell him that such and such a man (naming whoever it may be of the people) has sworn falsely by the king's hearth;

2for when the Scythians will swear their mightiest oath, it is by the king's hearth that they are accustomed to swear. Immediately, the man whom they allege to have sworn falsely is seized and brought in, and when he comes the diviners accuse him, saying that their divination shows him to have sworn falsely by the king's hearth, and that this is the cause of the king's sickness; and the man vehemently denies that he has sworn falsely.

3When he denies it, the king sends for twice as many diviners: and if they too, consulting their art, prove him guilty of perjury, then he is instantly beheaded, and his goods are divided among the first diviners;

4but if the later diviners acquit him, then other diviners come, and yet again others. If the greater number of them acquit the man, it is decreed that the first diviners themselves be put to death.

Chapter 69

1And this is how they die. Men yoke oxen to a wagon laden with sticks and tie the diviners up in these, fettering their legs and binding their hands behind them and gagging them; then they set fire to the sticks and drive the oxen away, stampeding them.

2Often the oxen are burnt to death with the diviners, and often the yoke-pole of their wagon is burnt through and the oxen escape with a scorching. They burn their diviners for other reasons, too, in the way described, calling them false prophets.

3When the king puts them to death, he does not leave the sons alive either, but kills all the males of the family; the females he does not harm.

Chapter 70

1As for giving sworn pledges to those who are to receive them, this is the Scythian way: they take blood from the parties to the agreement by making a little cut in the body with an awl or a knife, and pour it mixed with wine into a big earthenware bowl, into which they then dip a scimitar and arrows and an axe and a javelin; and when this is done those swearing the agreement, and the most honorable of their followers, drink the blood after solemn curses.

Chapter 71

1The burial-places of the kings are in the land of the Gerrhi, which is the end of the navigation of the Borysthenes. Whenever their king has died, the Scythians dig a great four-cornered pit in the ground there; when this is ready, they take up the dead man—his body enclosed in wax, his belly cut open and cleaned and filled with cut marsh-plants and frankincense, and parsley and anise seed, and sewn up again—and transport him on a wagon to another tribe.

2Then those who receive the dead man on his arrival do the same as do the Royal Scythians: that is, they cut off a part of their ears, shave their heads, make cuts around their arms, tear their foreheads and noses, and pierce their left hands with arrows.

3From there, the escorts transport the king's body on the wagon to another of the tribes that they rule, and those to whom they have already come follow them; and having carried the dead man to all in turn, they are at the place of burial, in the country of the Gerrhi, the farthest distant tribe of all under their rule.

4Then, having laid the body on a couch in the tomb, they plant spears on each side of the body and lay wooden planks across them, which they then roof over with braided osiers; in the open space which is left in the tomb they bury one of the king's concubines, his cupbearer, his cook, his groom, his squire, and his messenger, after strangling them, besides horses, and first-fruits of everything else, and golden cups; for the Scythians do not use silver or bronze.

5Having done this, they all build a great barrow of earth, vying eagerly with one another to make this as great as possible.

Chapter 72

1After a year has past, they next do as follows. They take the most trusted of the rest of the king's servants (and these are native-born Scythians, for only those whom he tells to do so serve the king, and none of the Scythians have servants bought by money)

2and strangle fifty of these and fifty of their best horses and empty and clean the bellies of them all, fill them with chaff, and sew them up again.

3Then they fasten half of a wheel to two posts, the hollow upward, and the other half to another pair of posts, until many posts thus prepared are planted in the ground, and, after driving thick stakes lengthways through the horses' bodies to their necks, they place the horses up on the wheels

4so that the wheel in front supports the horse's forequarters and the wheel behind takes the weight of the belly by the hindquarters, and the forelegs and hindlegs hang free; and putting bridles and bits in the horses' mouths, they stretch the bridles to the front and fasten them with pegs.

5Then they take each one of the fifty strangled young men and mount him on the horse; their way of doing it is to drive an upright stake through each body passing up alongside the spine to the neck leaving enough of the stake projecting below to be fixed in a hole made in the other stake, which passes through the horse. So having set horsemen of this fashion around the tomb, they ride away.

Chapter 73

1This is the way they bury their kings. All other Scythians, when they die, are laid in wagons and carried about among their friends by their nearest of kin; each receives them and entertains the retinue hospitably, setting before the dead man about as much of the fare as he serves to the rest. All but the kings are carried about like this for forty days and then buried.

2After the burial the Scythians cleanse themselves as follows: they anoint and wash their heads and, for their bodies, set up three poles leaning together to a point and cover these over with wool mats; then, in the space so enclosed to the best of their ability, they make a pit in the center beneath the poles and the mats and throw red-hot stones into it.

Chapter 74

1They have hemp growing in their country, very like flax, except that the hemp is much thicker and taller. This grows both of itself and also by their cultivation, and the Thracians even make garments of it which are very like linen; no one, unless he were an expert in hemp, could determine whether they were hempen or linen; whoever has never seen hemp before will think the garment linen.

Chapter 75

1The Scythians then take the seed of this hemp and, crawling in under the mats, throw it on the red-hot stones, where it smoulders and sends forth such fumes that no Greek vapor-bath could surpass it.

2The Scythians howl in their joy at the vapor-bath. This serves them instead of bathing, for they never wash their bodies with water.

3But their women pound cypress and cedar and frankincense wood on a rough stone, adding water also, and with the thick stuff thus pounded they anoint their bodies and faces, as a result of which not only does a fragrant scent come from them, but when on the second day they take off the ointment, their skin becomes clear and shining.

Chapter 76

1But as regards foreign customs, the Scythians (like others) very much shun practising those of any other country, and particularly of Hellas, as was proved in the case of Anacharsis and also of Scyles.

2For when Anacharsis was coming back to the Scythian country after having seen much of the world in his travels and given many examples of his wisdom, he sailed through the Hellespont and put in at Cyzicus;

3where, finding the Cyzicenes celebrating the feast of the Mother of the Gods with great ceremony, he vowed to this same Mother that if he returned to his own country safe and sound he would sacrifice to her as he saw the Cyzicenes doing, and establish a nightly rite of worship.

4So when he came to Scythia, he hid himself in the country called Woodland (which is beside the Race of Achilles, and is all overgrown with every kind of timber); hidden there, Anacharsis celebrated the goddess' ritual with exactness, carrying a small drum and hanging images about himself.

5Then some Scythian saw him doing this and told the king, Saulius; who, coming to the place himself and seeing Anacharsis performing these rites, shot an arrow at him and killed him. And now the Scythians, if they are asked about Anacharsis, say they have no knowledge of him; this is because he left his country for Hellas and followed the customs of strangers.

6But according to what I heard from Tymnes, the deputy for Ariapithes, Anacharsis was an uncle of Idanthyrsus king of Scythia, and he was the son of Gnurus, son of Lycus, son of Spargapithes. Now if Anacharsis was truly of this family, then let him know he was slain by his own brother; for Idanthyrsus was the son of Saulius, and it was Saulius who killed Anacharsis.

Chapter 77

1It is true that I have heard another story told by the Peloponnesians; namely, that Anacharsis had been sent by the king of Scythia and had been a student of the ways of Hellas, and after his return told the king who sent him that all Greeks were keen for every kind of learning, except the Lacedaemonians; but that these were the only Greeks who spoke and listened with discretion.

2But this is a tale pointlessly invented by the Greeks themselves; and be this as it may, the man was put to death as I have said.

Chapter 78

1This, then, was how Anacharsis fared, owing to his foreign ways and consorting with Greeks; and a great many years afterward, Scyles, son of Ariapithes, suffered a like fate. Scyles was one of the sons born to Ariapithes, king of Scythia; but his mother was of Istria, and not native-born; and she taught him to speak and read Greek.

2As time passed, Ariapithes was treacherously killed by Spargapithes, king of the Agathyrsi, and Scyles inherited the kingship and his father's wife, a Scythian woman whose name was Opoea, and she bore Scyles a son, Oricus.

3So Scyles was king of Scythia; but he was in no way content with the Scythian way of life, and was much more inclined to Greek ways, from the upbringing that he had received. So this is what he would do: he would lead the Scythian army to the city of the Borysthenites (who say that they are Milesians), and when he arrived there would leave his army in the suburb of the city,

4while he himself, entering within the walls and shutting the gates, would take off his Scythian apparel and put on Greek dress; and in it he would go among the townsfolk unattended by spearmen or any others (who would guard the gates, lest any Scythian see him wearing this apparel), and in every way follow the Greek manner of life, and worship the gods according to Greek usage.

5When he had spent a month or more like this, he would put on Scythian dress and leave the city. He did this often; and he built a house in Borysthenes, and married a wife of the people of the country and brought her there.

Chapter 79

1But when things had to turn out badly for him, they did so for this reason: he conceived a desire to be initiated into the rites of the Bacchic Dionysus; and when he was about to begin the sacred mysteries, he saw the greatest vision.

2He had in the city of the Borysthenites a spacious house, grand and costly (the same house I just mentioned), all surrounded by sphinxes and griffins worked in white marble; this house was struck by a thunderbolt. And though the house burnt to the ground, Scyles none the less performed the rite to the end.

3Now the Scythians reproach the Greeks for this Bacchic revelling, saying that it is not reasonable to set up a god who leads men to madness.

4So when Scyles had been initiated into the Bacchic rite, some one of the Borysthenites scoffed at the Scythians: “You laugh at us, Scythians, because we play the Bacchant and the god possesses us; but now this deity has possessed your own king, so that he plays the Bacchant and is maddened by the god. If you will not believe me, follow me now and I will show him to you.”

5The leading men among the Scythians followed him, and the Borysthenite brought them up secretly onto a tower; from which, when Scyles passed by with his company of worshippers, they saw him playing the Bacchant; thinking it a great misfortune, they left the city and told the whole army what they had seen.

Chapter 80

1After this Scyles rode off to his own place; but the Scythians rebelled against him, setting up his brother Octamasades, son of the daughter of Teres, for their king.

2Scyles, learning what had happened concerning him and the reason why it had happened, fled into Thrace; and when Octamasades heard this he led his army there. But when he was beside the Ister, the Thracians barred his way; and when the armies were about to engage, Sitalces sent this message to Octamasades:

3“Why should we try each other's strength? You are my sister's son, and you have my brother with you; give him back to me, and I will give up your Scyles to you; and let us not endanger our armies.”

4Such was the offer Sitalces sent to him; for Sitalces' brother had fled from him and was with Octamasades. The Scythian agreed to this, and took his brother Scyles, giving up his own uncle to Sitalces.

5Sitalces then took his brother and carried him away, but Octamasades beheaded Scyles on the spot. This is how closely the Scythians guard their customs, and these are the penalties they inflict on those who add foreign customs to their own.

Chapter 81

1How numerous the Scythians are, I was not able to learn exactly, and the accounts that I heard did not tally, some saying that they are very numerous, and some that they are few, so far as they are true Scythians.

2But this much they let me see for myself: there is a region between the Borysthenes and Hypanis rivers, whose name is Exampaeus; this is the land that I mentioned when I said that there is a spring of salt water in it, whose water makes the Hypanis unfit to drink.

3In this region is a bronze vessel, as much as six times greater than the cauldron dedicated by Pausanias son of Cleombrotus at the entrance of the Pontus.

4For anyone who has not yet seen the latter, I will make my meaning plain: the Scythian bronze vessel easily contains five thousand four hundred gallons, and it is of six fingers' thickness. This vessel (so the people of the country said) was made out of arrowheads.

5For their king, whose name was Ariantas, desiring to know the census of the Scythians, commanded every Scythian to bring him the point from an arrow, threatening death to all who did not.

6So a vast number of arrow-heads was brought, and he decided to make and leave a memorial out of them; and he made of these this bronze vessel, and set it up in this country Exampaeus. This much I heard about the number of the Scythians.

Chapter 82

1As for marvels, there are none in the land, except that it has by far the greatest and the most numerous rivers in the world; and over and above the rivers and the great extent of the plains there is one most marvellous thing for me to mention: they show a footprint of Heracles by the Tyras river stamped on rock, like the mark of a man's foot, but forty inches in length. Having described this, I will now return to the story which I began to tell.

Chapter 83

1While Darius was making preparations against the Scythians, and sending messengers to direct some to furnish infantry and some to furnish ships, and others again to bridge the Thracian Bosporus, Artabanus, son of Hystaspes and Darius' brother, by no means wanted him to make an expedition against the Scythians, telling him how hard that people were to deal with.

2But when, for all his good advice, he could not deter the king, Artabanus ceased to advise, and Darius, all his preparations made, led his army from Susa.

Chapter 84

1Then the Persian Oeobazus, who had three sons, all with the army, asked Darius that one be left behind. “You are my friend,” said the king, “and your request is reasonable; I will leave all your sons.”

2Oeobazus was very happy, supposing his sons released from service; but Darius told those whose job it was to execute all of Oeobazus' sons. So their throats were cut, and they were left there.

Chapter 85

1But Darius, when he came to that place in his march from Susa where the Bosporus was bridged in the territory of Calchedon, went aboard ship and sailed to the Dark Rocks (as they are called), which the Greeks say formerly moved; there, he sat on a headland and viewed the Pontus, a marvellous sight.

2For it is the most wonderful sea of all. Its length is eleven thousand one hundred stades, and its breadth three thousand three hundred stades at the place where it is widest.

3The channel at the entrance of this sea is four stades across; the narrow neck of the channel, called Bosporus, across which the bridge was thrown, is about one hundred and twenty stades long. The Bosporus reaches as far as to the Propontis;

4and the Propontis is five hundred stades wide and one thousand four hundred long; its outlet is the Hellespont, which is no wider than seven stades and four hundred long. The Hellespont empties into a gulf of the sea which we call Aegean.

Chapter 86

1These measurements have been made in this way: a ship will generally accomplish seventy thousand orguiae in a long day's voyage, and sixty thousand by night.

2This being granted, seeing that from the Pontus' mouth to the Phasis (which is the greatest length of the sea) it is a voyage of nine days and eight nights, the length of it will be one million one hundred and ten thousand orguiai, which make eleven thousand stades.

3From the Sindic region to Themiscura on the Thermodon river (the greatest width of the Pontus) it is a voyage of three days and two nights; that is, of three hundred and thirty thousand orguiai, or three thousand three hundred stades.

4Thus have I measured the Pontus and the Bosporus and Hellespont, and they are as I have said. Furthermore, a lake is seen issuing into the Pontus and not much smaller than the sea itself; it is called the Maeetian lake, and the mother of the Pontus.

Chapter 87

1After having viewed the Pontus, Darius sailed back to the bridge, whose architect was Mandrocles of Samos; and when he had viewed the Bosporus also, he set up two pillars of white marble by it, engraving on the one in Assyrian and on the other in Greek characters the names of all the nations that were in his army: all the nations subject to him. The full census of these, over and above the fleet, was seven hundred thousand men, including horsemen, and the number of ships assembled was six hundred.

2These pillars were afterward carried by the Byzantines into their city and there used to build the altar of Orthosian Artemis, except for one column covered with Assyrian writing that was left beside the temple of Dionysus at Byzantium. Now if my reckoning is correct, the place where king Darius bridged the Bosporus was midway between Byzantium and the temple at the entrance of the sea.

Chapter 88

1After this, being pleased with his bridge of boats, Darius made a gift of ten of everything to Mandrocles the Samian, the architect of it; Mandrocles took the first-fruits of these and had a picture made with them, showing the whole bridge of the Bosporus, and Darius sitting aloft on his throne and his army crossing; he set this up in the temple of Hera, with this inscription:

2“After bridging the Bosporus that teems with fish, Mandrocles dedicated a memorial of the floating bridge to Hera, Having won a crown for himself, and fame for the Samians, Doing the will of King Darius.” This memorialized the builder of the bridge.

Chapter 89

1Darius, after rewarding Mandrocles, crossed over to Europe; he had told the Ionians to sail into the Pontus as far as the Ister river, and when they got to the Ister, to wait there for him, bridging the river meanwhile; for the fleet was led by Ionians and Aeolians and men of the Hellespont.

2So the fleet passed between the Dark Rocks and sailed straight for the Ister and, after a two days' voyage up the river from the sea, set about bridging the narrow channel of the river where its various mouths separate.

3But Darius, passing over the Bosporus on the floating bridge of ships, journeyed through Thrace to the sources of the Tearus river, where he camped for three days.

Chapter 90

1The Tearus is said by those living on it to be the best river of all for purposes of healing, especially for healing mange in men and horses. Its springs are thirty-eight in number, some cold and some hot, all flowing from the same rock.

2There are two roads to the place, one from the town of Heraeum near Perinthus, one from Apollonia on the Euxine sea; each is a two days' journey. This Tearus is a tributary of the Contadesdus river, and that of the Agrianes, and that of the Hebrus, which empties into the sea near the city of Aenus.

Chapter 91

1Having come to this river and camped there, then, Darius was pleased with the sight of it, and set up yet another pillar there, cut with this inscription:

2“From the headwaters of the river Tearus flows the best and finest water of all; and to them came, leading an army against the Scythians, the best and finest man of all, Darius son of Hystaspes, king of Persia and all the continent.” Such was the inscription.

Chapter 92

1From there, Darius set out and came to another river called Artescus, which flows through the country of the Odrysae; and having reached this river, he pointed out a spot to the army, and told every man to lay one stone as he passed in this spot that he pointed out. After his army did this, he led it away, leaving behind there great piles of stones.

Chapter 93

1But before he came to the Ister, he first took the Getae, who pretend to be immortal. The Thracians of Salmydessus and of the country above the towns of Apollonia and Mesambria, who are called Cyrmianae and Nipsaei, surrendered without a fight to Darius; but the Getae resisted stubbornly, and were enslaved at once, the bravest and most just Thracians of all.

Chapter 94

1Their belief in their immortality is as follows: they believe that they do not die, but that one who perishes goes to the deity Salmoxis, or Gebeleïzis, as some of them call him.

2Once every five years they choose one of their people by lot and send him as a messenger to Salmoxis, with instructions to report their needs; and this is how they send him: three lances are held by designated men; others seize the messenger to Salmoxis by his hands and feet, and swing and toss him up on to the spear-points.

3If he is killed by the toss, they believe that the god regards them with favor; but if he is not killed, they blame the messenger himself, considering him a bad man, and send another messenger in place of him. It is while the man still lives that they give him the message.

4Furthermore, when there is thunder and lightning these same Thracians shoot arrows skyward as a threat to the god, believing in no other god but their own.

Chapter 95

1I understand from the Greeks who live beside the Hellespont and Pontus, that this Salmoxis was a man who was once a slave in Samos, his master being Pythagoras son of Mnesarchus;

2then, after being freed and gaining great wealth, he returned to his own country. Now the Thracians were a poor and backward people, but this Salmoxis knew Ionian ways and a more advanced way of life than the Thracian; for he had consorted with Greeks, and moreover with one of the greatest Greek teachers, Pythagoras;

3therefore he made a hall, where he entertained and fed the leaders among his countrymen, and taught them that neither he nor his guests nor any of their descendants would ever die, but that they would go to a place where they would live forever and have all good things.

4While he was doing as I have said and teaching this doctrine, he was meanwhile making an underground chamber. When this was finished, he vanished from the sight of the Thracians, and went down into the underground chamber, where he lived for three years,

5while the Thracians wished him back and mourned him for dead; then in the fourth year he appeared to the Thracians, and thus they came to believe what Salmoxis had told them. Such is the Greek story about him.

Chapter 96

1Now I neither disbelieve nor entirely believe the tale about Salmoxis and his underground chamber; but I think that he lived many years before Pythagoras;

2and as to whether there was a man called Salmoxis or this is some deity native to the Getae, let the question be dismissed.

Chapter 97

1Such were the ways of the Getae, who were subdued by the Persians and followed their army. When Darius and the land army with him had come to the Ister, and all had crossed, he had the Ionians break the bridge and follow him in his march across the mainland, together with the men of the fleet.

2So the Ionians were preparing to break the bridge and do Darius' bidding; but Cöes son of Erxander, the general of the Mytilenaeans, after first asking if Darius were willing to listen to advice from one who wanted to give it, said,

3“Since, O King, you are about to march against a country where you will not find tilled lands or inhabited cities, let this bridge stay where it is, leaving those who made it to guard it.

4Thus, if we find the Scythians and do what we want, we have a way of return; and even if we do not find them, at least our way back is safe; for my fear has never been that we shall be overcome by the Scythians in the field, but rather that we may not be able to find them, and so go astray to our harm.

5Now it may perhaps be said that I say this for my own sake, because I want to remain behind; but it is not so; I only declare publicly the opinion that I think best for you, and I will follow you and do not want to be left here.”

6Darius was very pleased with this advice, and he answered Cöes thus: “My friend from Lesbos, do not fail to show yourself to me when I return to my house safe, so that I may make you a good return for your good advice.”

Chapter 98

1After saying this, he tied sixty knots in a thong, and summoning the Ionian sovereigns to an audience said to them:

2“Gentlemen of Ionia, I take back the decision which I delivered before about the bridge; now, take this thong and do as follows. Begin to reckon from the day when you see me march away against the Scythians, and untie one knot each day: and if the days marked by the knots have all passed and I have not returned, embark for your own homes.

3But until then, since the plan is changed, guard the bridge, making every effort to keep and watch it. You will please me very much if you do this.” Having said this, Darius hastened to march further.

Chapter 99

1Thrace runs farther out into the sea than Scythia; and Scythia begins where a bay is formed in its coast, and the mouth of the Ister, facing southeast, is in that country.

2Now I am going to describe the coast of the true Scythia from the Ister, and give its measurements. The ancient Scythian land begins at the Ister and faces south and the south wind, as far as the city called Carcinitis.

3Beyond this place, the country fronting the same sea is hilly and projects into the Pontus; it is inhabited by the Tauric nation as far as what is called the Rough Peninsula; and this ends in the eastern sea.

4For the sea to the south and the sea to the east are two of the four boundary lines of Scythia, just as seas are boundaries of Attica; and the Tauri inhabit a part of Scythia like Attica, as though some other people, not Attic, were to inhabit the heights of Sunium from Thoricus to the town of Anaphlystus, if Sunium jutted farther out into the sea.

5I mean, so to speak, to compare small things with great. Such a land is the Tauric country. But those who have not sailed along that part of Attica may understand from this other analogy: it is as though in Calabria some other people, not Calabrian, were to live on the promontory within a line drawn from the harbor of Brundisium to Tarentum. I am speaking of these two countries, but there are many others of a similar kind that Tauris resembles.

Chapter 100

1Beyond the Tauric country the Scythians begin, living north of the Tauri and beside the eastern sea, west of the Cimmerian Bosporus and the Maeetian lake, as far as the Tanaïs river, which empties into the end of that lake.

2Now it has been seen that on its northern and inland side, running from the Ister, Scythia is bounded first by the Agathyrsi, next by the Neuri, next by the Man-eaters, and last by the Black-cloaks.

Chapter 101

1Scythia, then, is a four-sided country, two of whose sides are coastline, the frontiers running inland and those that are by the sea making it a perfect square;

2for it is a ten days' journey from the Ister to the Borysthenes, and the same from the Borysthenes to the Maeetian lake; and it is a twenty days' journey from the sea inland to the country of the Black-cloaks who live north of Scythia.

3Now, as I reckon a day's journey at two hundred stades, the cross-measurement of Scythia would be a distance of five hundred miles, and the line drawn straight up inland the same. Such then is the extent of this land.

Chapter 102

1Convinced that they alone were not able to repel Darius' army in open warfare, the Scythians sent messengers to their neighbors, whose kings had already gathered and were deliberating on the presumption that a great army was marching against them.

2The assembled kings were those of the Tauri, Agathyrsi, Neuri, Maneaters, Black-cloaks, Geloni, Budini, and Sauromatae.

Chapter 103

1Among these, the Tauri have the following customs: all ship-wrecked men, and any Greeks whom they capture in their sea-raids, they sacrifice to the Virgin goddess as I will describe: after the first rites of sacrifice, they strike the victim on the head with a club;

2according to some, they then place the head on a pole and throw the body off the cliff on which their temple stands; others agree as to the head, but say that the body is buried, not thrown off the cliff. The Tauri themselves say that this deity to whom they sacrifice is Agamemnon's daughter Iphigenia.

3As for enemies whom they defeat, each cuts his enemy's head off and carries it away to his house, where he places it on a tall pole and stands it high above the dwelling, above the smoke-vent for the most part. These heads, they say, are set up to guard the whole house. The Tauri live by plundering and war.

Chapter 104

1The Agathyrsi are the most refined of men and especially given to wearing gold. Their intercourse with women is promiscuous, so that they may be consanguine with one another and, all being relations, not harbor jealousy or animosity toward one another. In the rest of their customs they are like the Thracians.

Chapter 105

1The Neuri follow Scythian customs; but one generation before the advent of Darius' army, they happened to be driven from their country by snakes; for their land produced great numbers of these, and still more came down on them out of the desolation on the north, until at last the Neuri were so afflicted that they left their own country and lived among the Budini. It may be that these people are wizards;

2for the Scythians, and the Greeks settled in Scythia, say that once a year every one of the Neuri becomes a wolf for a few days and changes back again to his former shape. Those who tell this tale do not convince me; but they tell it nonetheless, and swear to its truth.

Chapter 106

1The Man-eaters are the most savage of all men in their way of life; they know no justice and obey no law. They are nomads, wearing a costume like the Scythian, but speaking a language of their own; of all these, they are the only people that eat men.

Chapter 107

1The Black-cloaks all wear black clothing, from which they get their name; their customs are Scythian.

Chapter 108

1The Budini are a great and populous nation; the eyes of them all are very bright, and they are ruddy. They have a city built of wood, called Gelonus. The wall of it is three and three quarters miles in length on each side of the city; this wall is high and all of wood; and their houses are wooden, and their temples;

2for there are temples of Greek gods among them, furnished in Greek style with images and altars and shrines of wood; and they honor Dionysus every two years with festivals and revelry. For the Geloni are by their origin Greeks, who left their trading ports to settle among the Budini; and they speak a language half Greek and half Scythian. But the Budini do not speak the same language as the Geloni, nor is their manner of life the same.

Chapter 109

1The Budini are indigenous; they are nomads, and the only people in these parts that eat fir-cones; the Geloni are farmers, eating grain and cultivating gardens; they are altogether unlike the Budini in form and in coloring. Yet the Greeks call the Budini too Geloni; but this is wrong.

2Their whole country is thickly wooded with every kind of tree; in the depth of the forest there is a great, wide lake and a marsh surrounded by reeds; otter is trapped in it, and beaver, besides certain square-faced creatures whose skins are used to trim mantles, and their testicles are used by the people to heal sicknesses of the womb.

Chapter 110

1About the Sauromatae, the story is as follows. When the Greeks were at war with the Amazons (whom the Scythians call Oiorpata, a name signifying in our tongue killers of men, for in Scythian a man is “oior” and to kill is “pata”), the story runs that after their victory on the Thermodon they sailed away carrying in three ships as many Amazons as they had been able to take alive; and out at sea the Amazons attacked the crews and killed them.

2But they knew nothing about ships, or how to use rudder or sail or oar; and with the men dead, they were at the mercy of waves and winds, until they came to the Cliffs by the Maeetian lake; this place is in the country of the free Scythians. The Amazons landed there, and set out on their journey to the inhabited country, and seizing the first troop of horses they met, they mounted them and raided the Scythian lands.

Chapter 111

1The Scythians could not understand the business; for they did not recognize the women's speech or their dress or their nation, but wondered where they had come from, and imagined them to be men all of the same age; and they met the Amazons in battle. The result of the fight was that the Scythians got possession of the dead, and so came to learn that their foes were women.

2Therefore, after deliberation they resolved by no means to slay them as before, but to send their youngest men to them, of a number corresponding (as they guessed) to the number of the women. They directed these youths to camp near the Amazons and to imitate all that they did; if the women pursued them, not to fight, but to flee; and when the pursuit stopped, to return and camp near them. This was the plan of the Scythians, for they desired that children be born of the women. The young men who were sent did as they were directed.

Chapter 112

1When the Amazons perceived that the youths meant them no harm, they let them be; but every day the two camps drew nearer to each other. Now the young men, like the Amazons, had nothing but their arms and their horses, and lived as did the women, by hunting and plunder.

Chapter 113

1At midday the Amazons would scatter and go apart from each other singly or in pairs, roaming apart for greater comfort. The Scythians noticed this and did likewise; and as the women wandered alone, a young man laid hold of one of them, and the woman did not resist but let him do his will;

2and since they did not understand each other's speech and she could not speak to him, she signed with her hand that he should come the next day to the same place and bring another youth with him (showing by signs that there should be two), and she would bring another woman with her.

3The youth went away and told his comrades; and the next day he came himself with another to the place, where he found the Amazon and another with her awaiting them. When the rest of the young men learned of this, they had intercourse with the rest of the Amazons.

Chapter 114

1Presently they joined their camps and lived together, each man having for his wife the woman with whom he had had intercourse at first. Now the men could not learn the women's language, but the women mastered the speech of the men;

2and when they understood each other, the men said to the Amazons, “We have parents and possessions; therefore, let us no longer live as we do, but return to our people and be with them; and we will still have you, and no others, for our wives.” To this the women replied:

3“We could not live with your women; for we and they do not have the same customs. We shoot the bow and throw the javelin and ride, but have never learned women's work; and your women do none of the things of which we speak, but stay in their wagons and do women's work, and do not go out hunting or anywhere else.

4So we could never agree with them. If you want to keep us for wives and to have the name of fair men, go to your parents and let them give you the allotted share of their possessions, and after that let us go and live by ourselves.” The young men agreed and did this.

Chapter 115

1So when they had been given the allotted share of possessions that fell to them, and returned to the Amazons, the women said to them:

2“We are worried and frightened how we are to live in this country after depriving you of your fathers and doing a lot of harm to your land.

3Since you propose to have us for wives, do this with us: come, let us leave this country and live across the Tanaïs river.”

Chapter 116

1To this too the youths agreed; and crossing the Tanaïs, they went a three days' journey east from the river, and a three days' journey north from lake Maeetis; and when they came to the region in which they now live, they settled there.

2Ever since then the women of the Sauromatae have followed their ancient ways; they ride out hunting, with their men or without them; they go to war, and dress the same as the men.

Chapter 117

1The language of the Sauromatae is Scythian, but not spoken in its ancient purity, since the Amazons never learned it correctly. In regard to marriage, it is the custom that no maiden weds until she has killed a man of the enemy; and some of them grow old and die unmarried, because they cannot fulfill the law.

Chapter 118

1The kings of the aforesaid nations having gathered, then, the Scythian messengers came and laid everything before them, explaining how the Persian, now that the whole of the other continent was subject to him, had crossed over to their continent by a bridge thrown across the neck of the Bosporus, and how having crossed it and subjugated the Thracians he was now bridging the Ister, so as to make that whole region subject to him like the others.

2“By no means stand aside and let us be destroyed,” they said; “rather, let us unite and oppose this invader. If you will not, then we shall either be driven out of our country or stay and make terms.

3For what is to become of us if you will not help us? And afterward it will not be easy for you, either; for the Persian has come to attack you no less than us, and when he has subjugated us he will not be content to leave you alone.

4We will give you a convincing proof of what we say: if indeed the Persian were marching against us alone, wanting vengeance for our former enslavement of his country, he ought to leave others alone and make straight for us, and would show everyone that Scythia and no other country was his goal.

5But as it is, from the day he crossed over to this continent, he has been taming all that come in his way, and he holds in subjection not only the rest of Thrace, but also our neighbors the Getae.”

Chapter 119

1After the Scythians had made this speech, the kings who had come from the nations deliberated, and their opinions were divided. The kings of the Geloni and the Budini and the Sauromatae were of one mind and promised to help the Scythians; but the kings of the Agathyrsi and Neuri and Maneaters and Black-cloaks and Tauri gave this answer to the messengers:

2“Had it not been you who wronged the Persians first and began the war, what you now ask would seem to us right, and we would listen and act together with you.

3But as it is, you invaded their land without us and ruled the Persians for as long as god granted; and the Persians, urged on by the same god, are only repaying you in kind.

4But we did these men no wrong at that former time, nor do we intend now to wrong them first; but if the Persian comes against our land too and begins the wrong-doing, then we will not accept it, either; but until we see that, we shall keep to ourselves. For in our judgment the Persians have not come for us but for those who were the agents of wrong.”

Chapter 120

1When this answer was brought back to the Scythians, they determined not to meet their enemy in the open field, since they could not get the allies that they sought, but rather to fall back driving off their herds, choking the wells and springs on their way and destroying the grass from the earth; and they divided themselves into two companies.

2It was their decision that to one of their divisions, which Scopasis ruled, the Sauromatae be added; if the Persian marched that way, this group was to retire before him and fall back toward the Tanaïs river, by the Maeetian lake, and if the Persian turned to go back, then they were to pursue and attack him. This was one of the divisions of the royal people, and it was appointed to follow this course;

3their two other divisions, namely, the greater whose ruler was Idanthyrsus, and the third whose king was Taxakis, were to unite, and taking with them also the Geloni and Budini, to draw off like the others at the Persian approach, always keeping one day's march ahead of the enemy, avoiding a confrontation and doing what had been determined.

4First, then, they were to retreat in a straight line toward the countries which refused their alliance, so as to involve these, too, in the war; for if they did not of their own accord support the war against the Persians, they must be involved against their will; and after that, the division was to turn back to its own country, and attack the enemy, if in deliberation they thought this best.

Chapter 121

1Determined on this plan, the Scythians sent an advance guard of their best horsemen to meet Darius' army. As for the wagons in which their children and wives lived, all these they sent forward, with instructions to drive always northward; and they sent all their flocks with the wagons, keeping none back except what was required for their food.

Chapter 122

1After this convoy was first sent on its way, the advance guard of the Scythians found the Persians about a three days' march distant from the Ister; and having found them they camped a day's march ahead of the enemy and set about scorching the earth of all living things.

2When the Persians saw the Scythian cavalry appear, they marched on its track, the horsemen always withdrawing before them; and then, making for the one Scythian division, the Persians held on in pursuit toward the east and the Tanaïs river;

3when the horsemen crossed this, the Persians crossed also, and pursued until they had marched through the land of the Sauromatae to the land of the Budini.

Chapter 123

1As long as the Persians were traversing the Scythian and Sauromatic territory there was nothing for them to harm, as the land was dry and barren. But when they entered the country of the Budini, they found themselves before the wooden-walled town; the Budini had abandoned it and left nothing in it, and the Persians burnt the town.

2Then going forward still on the horsemen's track, they passed through this country into desolation, which is inhabited by no one; it lies to the north of the Budini and its breadth is a seven days' march.

3Beyond this desolation live the Thyssagetae; four great rivers flow from their country through the land of the Maeetians, and issue into the lake called the Maeetian; their names are Lycus, Oarus, Tanaïs, Syrgis.

Chapter 124

1When Darius came into the desolate country, he halted in his pursuit and camped on the Oarus river, where he built eight great forts, the ruins of which were standing even in my lifetime, all at an equal distance of about seven miles from one another.

2While he was occupied with these, the Scythians whom he was pursuing doubled north and turned back into Scythia. Then, when they had altogether vanished and were no longer within the Persians' sight, Darius left those forts only half finished, and he too doubled about and marched west, thinking that those Scythians were the whole army, and that they were fleeing toward the west.

Chapter 125

1But when he came by forced marches into Scythia, he met the two divisions of the Scythians, and pursued them, who always kept a day's march away from him;

2and because Darius would not stop pursuing them, the Scythians, according to the plan they had made, fell back before him to the countries of those who had refused their alliance, to the land of the Black-cloaks first.

3The Scythians and Persians burst into their land, agitating them; and from there, the Scythians led the Persians into the country of the Man-eaters, agitating them too; from there, they drew off into the country of the Neuri and, agitating them also, fled to the Agathyrsi.

4But the Agathyrsi, seeing their neighbors fleeing panic-stricken at the Scythians' approach, before the Scythians could break into their land sent a herald to forbid them to set foot across their borders, warning the Scythians that if they tried to break through they would have to fight with the Agathyrsi first.

5With this warning, the Agathyrsi mustered on their borders, intending to stop the invaders. When the Persians and the Scythians broke into their lands, the Blackcloaks and Man-eaters and Neuri put up no resistance, but forgot their threats and fled panic-stricken north into the desolate country.

6But warned off by the Agathyrsi, the Scythians made no second attempt on that country, but led the Persians from the lands of the Neuri into Scythia.

Chapter 126

1As this went on for a long time and did not stop, Darius sent a horseman to Idanthyrsus the Scythian king, with this message: “You crazy man, why do you always run, when you can do otherwise? If you believe yourself strong enough to withstand my power, stand and fight and stop running; but if you know you are the weaker, then stop running like this and come to terms with your master, bringing gifts of earth and water.”

Chapter 127

1Idanthyrsus the Scythian king replied: “It is like this with me, Persian: I never ran from any man before out of fear, and I am not running from you now; I am not doing any differently now than I am used to doing in time of peace, too.

2As to why I do not fight with you at once, I will tell you why. We Scythians have no towns or cultivated land, out of fear for which, that the one might be taken or the other wasted, we would engage you sooner in battle. But if all you want is to come to that quickly, we have the graves of our fathers.

3Come on, find these and try to destroy them: you shall know then whether we will fight you for the graves or whether we will not fight. Until then, unless we have reason, we will not engage with you.

4As to fighting, enough; as to masters, I acknowledge Zeus my forefather and Hestia queen of the Scythians only. As for you, instead of gifts of earth and water I shall send such as ought to come to you; and for your boast that you are my master, I say ‘Weep!’” Such is the proverbial “Scythian speech.”

Chapter 128

1So the herald went to carry this message to Darius; but the Scythian kings were filled with anger when they heard the word “slavery”.

2They then sent the division of the Scythians to which the Sauromatae were attached, and which was led by Scopasis, to speak with those Ionians guarding the bridge over the Ister; as for those of the Scythians who remained behind, it was decided that they should no longer decoy the Persians, but attack them whenever they were foraging for provision. So they watched for the time when Darius' men were foraging, and did as they had planned.

3The Scythian horse always routed the Persian horse, and when the Persian cavalry would fall back in flight on their infantry, the infantry would come up to their aid; and the Scythians, once they had driven in the horse, turned back for fear of the infantry. The Scythians attacked in this fashion by night as well as by day.

Chapter 129

1Very strange to say, what aided the Persians and thwarted the Scythians in their attacks on Darius' army was the braying of the asses and the appearance of the mules.

2For, as I have before indicated, Scythia produces no asses or mules; and there is not in most of Scythia an ass or a mule, because of the cold. Therefore the asses frightened the Scythian horses when they brayed loudly;

3and often, when they were in the act of charging the Persians, the horses would shy in fear if they heard the asses bray or would stand still with ears erect, never having heard a noise like it or seen a like creature.

Chapter 130

1The Persians thus gained very little in the war, for when the Scythians saw that the Persians were shaken, they formed a plan to have them remain longer in Scythia and, remaining, be distressed by lack of necessities: they would leave some of their flocks behind with the shepherds, moving away themselves to another place; and the Persians would come and take the sheep, and be encouraged by this achievement.

Chapter 131

1After such a thing had happened several times, Darius was finally at a loss; and when they perceived this, the Scythian kings sent a herald to Darius with the gift of a bird, a mouse, a frog, and five arrows.

2The Persians asked the bearer of these gifts what they meant; but he said that he had only been told to give the gifts and then leave at once; he told the Persians to figure out what the presents meant themselves, if they were smart enough.

Chapter 132

1When they heard this, the Persians deliberated. Darius' judgment was that the Scythians were surrendering themselves and their earth and their water to him; for he reasoned that a mouse is a creature found in the earth and eating the same produce as men, and a frog is a creature of the water and a bird particularly like a horse; and the arrows signified that the Scythians surrendered their fighting power.

2This was the opinion declared by Darius; but the opinion of Gobryas, one of the seven who had slain the Magus, was contrary to it. He reasoned that the meaning of the gifts was,

3“Unless you become birds, Persians, and fly up into the sky, or mice and hide in the earth, or frogs and leap into the lakes, you will be shot by these arrows and never return home.”

Chapter 133

1The Persians reasoned thus about the gifts. But when the first division of the Scythians came to the bridge—the division that had first been appointed to stand on guard by the Maeetian lake and had now been sent to the Ister to speak with the Ionians—they said,

2“Ionians, we have come to bring you freedom, if you will only listen to us. We understand that Darius has directed you to guard the bridge for sixty days only, and if he does not come within that time, then to go away to your homes.

3Now then, do what will leave you guiltless in his eyes as in ours: stay here for the time appointed; and after that, leave.” So the Ionians promised to do this, and the Scythians made their way back with all haste.

Chapter 134

1But after sending the gifts to Darius, the Scythians who had remained there came out with foot and horse and offered battle to the Persians. But when the Scythian ranks were set in order, a rabbit ran out between the armies; and every Scythian that saw it gave chase. So there was confusion and shouting among the Scythians; Darius asked about the clamor among the enemy; and when he heard that they were chasing a rabbit, he said to those with whom he was accustomed to speak,

2“These men hold us in deep contempt; and I think now that Gobryas' opinion of the Scythian gifts was true. Since, then, my own judgment agrees with his, we need to consider carefully how we shall return safely.” To this Gobryas said: “O King, I understood almost by reason alone how difficult it would be to deal with these Scythians; but when I came here, I understood even better, watching them toying with us.

3Now then, my advice is that at nightfall we kindle our campfires in the usual way, deceive those in our army who are least fit to endure hardship, and tether all our asses here, and ourselves depart, before the Scythians can march straight to the Ister to break up the bridge, or the Ionians take some action by which we may well be ruined.”

Chapter 135

1This was Gobryas' advice, and at nightfall Darius followed it. He left the men who were worn out, and those whose loss mattered least to him, there in the camp, and all the asses, too, tethered.

2His reasons for leaving the asses, and the infirm among his soldiers, were the following: the asses, so that they would bray; the men, who were left because of their infirmity, he pretended were to guard the camp while he attacked the Scythians with the fit part of his army.

3Giving this order to those who were left behind, and lighting campfires, Darius made all haste to reach the Ister. When the asses found themselves deserted by the multitude, they brayed the louder for it; and the Scythians heard them and assumed that the Persians were in the place.

Chapter 136

1But when it was day, the men left behind perceived that Darius had betrayed them, and they held out their hands to the Scythians and explained the circumstances; they, when they heard this, assembled their power in haste, the two divisions of their horde and the one division that was with the Sauromatae and Budini and Geloni, and made straight for the Ister in pursuit of the Persians.

2And as the Persian army was for the most part infantry and did not know the roads (which were not marked), while the Scythians were horsemen and knew the short cuts, they went wide of each other, and the Scythians reached the bridge long before the Persians.

3There, perceiving that the Persians had not yet come, they said to the Ionians, who were in their ships, “Ionians, the days have exceeded the number, and you are wrong to be here still.

4Since it was fear that kept you here, now break the bridge in haste and go, free and happy men, thanking the gods and the Scythians. The one that was your master we shall impress in such a way that he will never lead an army against anyone again.”

Chapter 137

1Then the Ionians held a council. Miltiades the Athenian, general and sovereign of the Chersonesites of the Hellespont, advised that they do as the Scythians said and set Ionia free.

2But Histiaeus of Miletus advised the opposite. He said, “It is owing to Darius that each of us is sovereign of his city; if Darius' power is overthrown, we shall no longer be able to rule, I in Miletus or any of you elsewhere; for all the cities will choose democracy rather than despotism.”

3When Histiaeus explained this, all of them at once inclined to his view, although they had first sided with Miltiades.

Chapter 138

1Those high in Darius' favor who gave their vote were Daphnis of Abydos, Hippoclus of Lampsacus, Herophantus of Parium, Metrodorus of Proconnesus, Aristagoras of Cyzicus, Ariston of Byzantium,

2all from the Hellespont and sovereigns of cities there; and from Ionia, Strattis of Chios, Aiaces of Samos, Laodamas of Phocaea, and Histiaeus of Miletus who opposed the plan of Miltiades. As for the Aeolians, their only notable man present was Aristagoras of Cymae.

Chapter 139

1When these accepted Histiaeus' view, they decided to act upon it in the following way: to break as much of the bridge on the Scythian side as a bowshot from there carried, so that they seem to be doing something when in fact they were doing nothing, and that the Scythians not try to force their way across the bridge over the Ister; and to say while they were breaking the portion of the bridge on the Scythian side, that they would do all that the Scythians desired.

2This was the plan they adopted; and then Histiaeus answered for them all, and said, “You have come with good advice, Scythians, and your urgency is timely: you guide us well and we do you a convenient service; for, as you see, we are breaking the bridge, and will be diligent about it, as we want to be free.

3But while we are breaking the bridge, this is your opportunity to go and find the Persians, and when you have found them, punish them as they deserve on our behalf and on your own.”

Chapter 140

1So the Scythians, trusting the Ionians' word once more, turned back to look for the Persians; but they missed the way by which their enemies returned. The Scythians themselves were to blame for this, because they had destroyed the horses' pasturage in that region and blocked the wells.

2Had they not done, they could, if they had wished, easily have found the Persians. But as it was, that part of their plan which they had thought the best was the very cause of their going astray.

3So the Scythians went searching for their enemies through the parts of their own country where there was forage for the horses and water, supposing that they, too, were heading for such places in their flight; but the Persians kept to their own former tracks, and so with much trouble they found the crossing.

4But as they arrived at night and found the bridge broken, they were in great alarm lest the Ionians had abandoned them.

Chapter 141

1There was an Egyptian with Darius whose voice was the loudest in the world; Darius had this man stand on the bank of the Ister and call to Histiaeus the Milesian. This the Egyptian did; Histiaeus heard and answered the first shout, and sent all the ships to ferry the army over, and repaired the bridge.

Chapter 142

1Thus the Persians escaped. The Scythians sought the Persians, but missed them again. Their judgment of the Ionians is that if they are regarded as free men they are the basest and most craven in the world; but if they are reckoned as slaves, none love their masters more, or desire less to escape. Thus have the Scythians taunted the Ionians.

Chapter 143

1Darius marched through Thrace to Sestos on the Chersonesus; from there, he crossed over with his ships to Asia, leaving Megabazus as his commander in Europe, a Persian whom he once honored by saying among the Persians what I note here:

2Darius was about to eat pomegranates, and no sooner had he opened the first of them than his brother Artabanus asked him what he would like to have as many of as there were seeds in his pomegranate; then Darius said that he would rather have that many men like Megabazus than make all Hellas subject to him.

3By speaking thus among Persians, the king honored Megabazus; and now he left him behind as his commander, at the head of eighty thousand of his army.

Chapter 144

1This Megabazus is forever remembered by the people of the Hellespont for replying,

2when he was told at Byzantium that the people of Calchedon had founded their town seventeen years before the Byzantines had founded theirs, that the Calchedonians must at that time have been blind, for had they not been, they would never have chosen the worse site for their city when they might have had the better.

3This Megabazus, left now as commander in the country, subjugated all the people of the Hellespont who did not take the side of the Persians.

Chapter 145

1At the same time that he was doing this, another great force was sent against Libya, for the reason that I shall give after I finish the story that I am going to tell now.

2The descendants of the crew of the Argo were driven out by the Pelasgians who carried off the Athenian women from Brauron; after being driven out of Lemnos by them, they sailed away to Lacedaemon, and there camped on Teügetum and kindled a fire.

3Seeing it, the Lacedaemonians sent a messenger to inquire who they were and where they came from. They answered the messenger that they were Minyae, descendants of the heroes who had sailed in the Argo and put in at Lemnos and there begot their race.

4Hearing the story of the lineage of the Minyae, the Lacedaemonians sent a second time and asked why they had come into Laconia and kindled a fire. They replied that, having been expelled by the Pelasgians, they had come to the land of their fathers, as was most just; and their wish was to live with their fathers' people, sharing in their rights and receiving allotted pieces of land.

5The Lacedaemonians were happy to receive the Minyae on the terms which their guests desired; the chief cause of their consenting was that the Tyndaridae had been in the ship's company of the Argo; so they received the Minyae and gave them land and distributed them among their own tribes. The Minyae immediately married, and gave in marriage to others the women they had brought from Lemnos.

Chapter 146

1But in no time these Minyae became imperious, demanding an equal right to the kingship, and doing other impious things;

2hence the Lacedaemonians resolved to kill them, and they seized them and cast them into prison. (When the Lacedaemonians execute, they do it by night, never by day.)

3Now when they were about to kill the prisoners, the wives of the Minyae, who were natives of the country, daughters of leading Spartans, asked permission to enter the prison and each converse with her husband; the Lacedamonians granted this, not expecting that there would be any treachery from them.

4But when the wives came into the prison, they gave their husbands all their own garments, and themselves put on the men's clothing; so the Minyae passed out in the guise of women dressed in women's clothing; and thus escaping, once more camped on Teügetum.

Chapter 147

1Now, about this same time, Theras, a descendant of Polynices through Thersander, Tisamenus, and Autesion, was preparing to lead out colonists from Lacedaemon.

2This Theras was of the line of Cadmus and was an uncle on their mother's side to Aristodemus' sons Eurysthenes and Procles; and while these boys were yet children he held the royal power of Sparta as regent;

3but when his nephews grew up and became kings, then Theras could not endure to be a subject when he had had a taste of supreme power, and said he would no longer stay in Lacedaemon but would sail away to his family.

4On the island now called Thera, but then Calliste, there were descendants of Membliarus the son of Poeciles, a Phoenician; for Cadmus son of Agenor had put in at the place now called Thera during his search for Europa; and having put in, either because the land pleased him, or because for some other reason he desired to do so, he left on this island his own relation Membliarus together with other Phoenicians.

5These dwelt on the island of Calliste for eight generations before Theras came from Lacedaemon.

Chapter 148

1It was these that Theras was preparing to join, taking with him a company of people from the tribes; his intention was to settle among the people of Calliste and not drive them out but claim them as in fact his own people.

2So when the Minyae escaped from prison and camped on Teügetum, and the Lacedaemonians were planning to put them to death, Theras interceded for their lives, that there might be no killing, promising to lead them out of the country himself.

3The Lacedaemonians consented to this, and Theras sailed with three thirty-oared ships to join the descendants of Membliarus, taking with him not all the Minyae but only a few;

4for the greater part of them made their way to the lands of the Paroreatae and Caucones, and after having driven these out of their own country, they divided themselves into six companies and established the cities of Lepreum, Macistus, Phrixae, Pyrgus, Epium, and Nudium in the land they had won; most of these were in my time taken and sacked by the Eleans. As for the island Calliste, it was called Thera after its colonist.

Chapter 149

1But as Theras' son would not sail with him, his father said that he would leave him behind as a sheep among wolves; after which saying the boy got the nickname of Oeolycus, and it so happened that this became his customary name. He had a son, Aegeus, from whom the Aegidae, a great Spartan clan, take their name.

2The men of this clan, finding that none of their children lived, set up a temple of the avenging spirits of Laïus and Oedipus, by the instruction of an oracle, after which their children lived. It fared thus, too, with the children of the Aegidae at Thera.

Chapter 150

1So far in the story the Lacedaemonian and Theraean records agree; for the rest, we have only the word of the Theraeans.

2Grinnus son of Aesanius, king of Thera, a descendant of this same Theras, came to Delphi bringing a hecatomb from his city; among others of his people, Battus son of Polymnestus came with him, a descendant of Euphemus of the Minyan clan.

3When Grinnus king of Thera asked the oracle about other matters, the priestess' answer was that he should found a city in Libya. “Lord, I am too old and heavy to stir; command one of these younger men to do this,” answered Grinnus, pointing to Battus as he spoke.

4No more was said then. But when they departed, they neglected to obey the oracle, since they did not know where Libya was, and were afraid to send a colony out to an uncertain destination.

Chapter 151

1For seven years after this there was no rain in Thera; all the trees in the island except one withered. The Theraeans inquired at Delphi again, and the priestess mentioned the colony they should send to Libya.

2So, since there was no remedy for their ills, they sent messengers to Crete to find any Cretan or traveller there who had travelled to Libya. In their travels about the island, these came to the town of Itanus, where they met a murex fisherman named Corobius, who told them that he had once been driven off course by winds to Libya, to an island there called Platea.

3They hired this man to come with them to Thera; from there, just a few men were sent aboard ship to spy out the land first; guided by Corobius to the aforesaid island Platea, these left him there with provision for some months, and themselves sailed back with all speed to Thera to bring news of the island.

Chapter 152

1But after they had been away for longer than the agreed time, and Corobius had no provisions left, a Samian ship sailing for Egypt, whose captain was Colaeus, was driven off her course to Platea, where the Samians heard the whole story from Corobius and left him provisions for a year;

2they then put out to sea from the island and would have sailed to Egypt, but an easterly wind drove them from their course, and did not abate until they had passed through the Pillars of Heracles and came providentially to Tartessus.

3Now this was at that time an untapped market; hence, the Samians, of all the Greeks whom we know with certainty, brought back from it the greatest profit on their wares except Sostratus of Aegina, son of Laodamas; no one could compete with him.

4The Samians took six talents, a tenth of their profit, and made a bronze vessel with it, like an Argolic cauldron, with griffins' heads projecting from the rim all around; they set this up in their temple of Hera, supporting it with three colossal kneeling figures of bronze, each twelve feet high.

5What the Samians had done was the beginning of a close friendship between them and the men of Cyrene and Thera.

Chapter 153

1As for the Theraeans, when they came to Thera after leaving Corobius on the island, they brought word that they had established a settlement on an island off Libya. The Theraeans determined to send out men from their seven regions, taking by lot one of every pair of brothers, and making Battus leader and king of all. Then they manned two fifty-oared ships and sent them to Platea.

Chapter 154

1This is what the Theraeans say; and now begins the part in which the Theraean and Cyrenaean stories agree, but not until now, for the Cyrenaeans tell a wholly different story about Battus, which is this. There is a town in Crete called Oaxus, of which one Etearchus became ruler. He was a widower with a daughter whose name was Phronime, and he married a second wife.

2When the second wife came into his house, she thought fit to be the proverbial stepmother to Phronime, ill-treating her and devising all sorts of evil against her; at last she accused the girl of lewdness, and persuaded her husband that the charge was true. So Etearchus was persuaded by his wife and contrived a great sin against his daughter.

3There was at Oaxus a Theraean trader, one Themison; Etearchus made this man his guest and friend, and got him to swear that he would do him whatever service he desired; then he gave the man his own daughter, telling him to take her away and throw her into the sea.

4But Themison was very angry at being thus tricked on his oath and renounced his friendship with Etearchus; presently, he took the girl and sailed away, and so as to fulfill the oath that he had sworn to Etearchus, when he was on the high seas he bound her with ropes and let her down into the sea and drew her up again, and presently arrived at Thera.

Chapter 155

1There Polymnestus, a notable Theraean, took Phronime and made her his concubine. In time, a son of weak and stammering speech was born to him, to whom he gave the name Battus, as the Theraeans and Cyrenaeans say; but in my opinion the boy was given some other name,

2and changed it to Battus on his coming to Libya, taking this new name because of the oracle given to him at Delphi and the honorable office which he received. For the Libyan word for king is “Battus,” and this (I believe) is why the Pythian priestess called him so in her prophecy, using a Libyan name because she knew that he was to be king in Libya.

3For when he grew to adulthood, he went to Delphi to inquire about his voice; and the priestess in answer gave him this: “Battus, you have come for a voice; but Lord Phoebus Apollo Sends you to found a city in Libya, nurse of sheep,” just as if she addressed him using the Greek word for “king,” “Basileus, you have come for a voice,” et cetera.

4But he answered: “Lord, I came to you to ask about my speech; but you talk of other matters, things impossible to do; you tell me to plant a colony in Libya; where shall I get the power or strength of hand for it?” Battus spoke thus, but as the god would not give him another oracle and kept answering as before, he departed while the priestess was still speaking, and went away to Thera.

Chapter 156

1But afterward things turned out badly for Battus and the rest of the Theraeans; and when, ignorant of the cause of their misfortunes, they sent to Delphi to ask about their present ills,

2the priestess declared that they would fare better if they helped Battus plant a colony at Cyrene in Libya. Then the Theraeans sent Battus with two fifty-oared ships; these sailed to Libya, but, not knowing what else to do, presently returned to Thera.

3There, the Theraeans shot at them as they came to land and would not let the ship put in, telling them to sail back; which they did under constraint of necessity, and planted a colony on an island off the Libyan coast called (as I have said already) Platea. This island is said to be as big as the city of Cyrene is now.

Chapter 157

1Here they lived for two years; but as everything went wrong, the rest sailed to Delphi leaving one behind, and on their arrival questioned the oracle, and said that they were living in Libya, but that they were no better off for that.

2Then the priestess gave them this reply: “If you know Libya nurse of sheep better than I, Though I have been there and you have not, then I am very much astonished at your knowledge.” Hearing this, Battus and his men sailed back again; for the god would not let them do anything short of colonizing Libya itself;

3and having come to the island and taken aboard the one whom they had left there, they made a settlement at a place in Libya itself, opposite the island which was called Aziris. This is a place enclosed on both sides by the fairest of groves, with a river flowing along one side of it.

Chapter 158

1Here they dwelt for six years; but in the seventh, the Libyans got them to leave the place, saying that they would lead them to a better;

2and they brought the Greeks from Aziris and led them west, so calculating the hours of daylight that they led the Greeks past the fairest place in their country, called Irasa, at night, lest the Greeks see it in their journey.

3Then they brought the Greeks to what is called the Fountain of Apollo, and said to them: “Here, Greeks, it is suitable for you to live; for here the sky is torn.”

Chapter 159

1Now in the time of Battus the founder of the colony, who ruled for forty years, and of his son Arcesilaus who ruled for sixteen, the inhabitants of Cyrene were no more in number than when they had first gone out to the colony.

2But in the time of the third ruler, Battus, who was called the Fortunate, the Pythian priestess warned all Greeks by an oracle to cross the sea and live in Libya with the Cyrenaeans; for the Cyrenaeans invited them, promising a distribution of land;

3and this was the oracle: “Whoever goes to beloved Libya after The fields are divided, I say shall be sorry afterward.”

4So a great multitude gathered at Cyrene, and cut out great tracts of land from the territory of the neighboring Libyans. Robbed of their lands and treated violently by the Cyrenaeans, these then sent to Egypt together with their king, whose name was Adicran, and put their affairs in the hands of Apries, the king of that country.

5Apries mustered a great force of Egyptians and sent it against Cyrene; the Cyrenaeans marched out to Irasa and the Thestes spring, and there fought with the Egyptians and beat them;

6for the Egyptians had as yet had no experience of Greeks, and despised their enemy; as a result of which, they were so utterly destroyed that few of them returned to Egypt. Because of this misfortune, and because they blamed him for it, the Egyptians revolted from Apries.

Chapter 160

1This Battus had a son Arcesilaus; on his first coming to reign, he quarrelled with his brothers, until they left him and went away to another place in Libya, where they founded a city for themselves, which was then and is now called Barce; and while they were founding it, they persuaded the Libyans to revolt from the Cyrenaeans.

2Then Arcesilaus led an army into the country of the Libyans who had received his brothers and had also revolted; and they fled in fear of him to the eastern Libyans.

3Arcesilaus pursued them until he came in his pursuit to Leucon in Libya, where the Libyans resolved to attack him; they engaged, and so wholly overcame the Cyrenaeans that seven thousand Cyrenaean soldiers were killed there.

4After this disaster, Arcesilaus, being worn down and having taken a drug, was strangled by his brother Learchus; Learchus was deftly killed by Arcesilaus' wife, Eryxo.

Chapter 161

1Arcesilaus' kingship passed to his son Battus, who was lame and infirm in his feet. The Cyrenaeans, in view of the affliction that had overtaken them, sent to Delphi to ask what political arrangement would enable them to live best;

2the priestess told them bring a mediator from Mantinea in Arcadia. When the Cyrenaeans sent their request, the Mantineans gave them their most valued citizen, whose name was Demonax.

3When this man came to Cyrene and learned everything, he divided the people into three tribes; of which the Theraeans and dispossessed Libyans were one, the Peloponnesians and Cretans the second, and all the islanders the third; furthermore, he set apart certain domains and priesthoods for their king Battus, but all the rest, which had belonged to the kings, were now to be held by the people in common.

Chapter 162

1During the life of this Battus, these ordinances held good, but in the time of his son Arcesilaus much contention arose about the king's rights.

2Arcesilaus, son of the lame Battus and Pheretime, would not abide by the ordinances of Demonax, but demanded back the prerogatives of his forefathers, and made himself head of a faction; but he was defeated and banished to Samos, and his mother fled to Salamis in Cyprus.

3Now Salamis at this time was ruled by Evelthon, who dedicated that marvellous censer at Delphi which stands in the treasury of the Corinthians. Pheretime came to him, asking him for an army to bring her and her son back to Cyrene;

4Evelthon was willing to give her everything else, only not an army, and when she accepted what he gave her, she said that it was fine, but it would be better to give her an army as she asked.

5This she said whatever the gift, until at last Evelthon sent her a golden spindle and distaff, and wool, and when Pheretime uttered the same words as before, he answered that these, and not armies, were gifts for women.

Chapter 163

1Meanwhile Arcesilaus was in Samos, collecting all the men that he could and promising them a new division of land; and while a great army was thus gathering, he made a journey to Delphi, to ask the oracle about his return.

2The priestess gave him this answer: “For the lifetimes of four Battuses and four Arcesilauses, eight generations of men, Loxias grants to your house the kingship of Cyrene; more than this he advises you not even to try.

3But you, return to your country and live there in peace. But if you find the oven full of amphora, do not bake the amphora, but let them go unscathed. And if you bake them in the oven, do not go into the tidal place; for if you do, then you shall be killed yourself, and also the bull that is fairest of the herd.” This was the oracle given by the priestess to Arcesilaus.

Chapter 164

1But he returned to Cyrene with the men from Samos, and having made himself master of it he forgot the oracle, and demanded justice upon his enemies for his banishment.

2Some of these left the country altogether; others, Arcesilaus seized and sent away to Cyprus to be killed there. These were carried off their course to Cnidus, where the Cnidians saved them and sent them to Thera. Others of the Cyrenaeans fled for refuge into a great tower that belonged to one Aglomachus, a private man, and Arcesilaus piled wood around it and burnt them there.

3Then, perceiving too late that this was the meaning of the Delphic oracle which forbade him to bake the amphora if he found them in the oven, he deliberately refrained from going into the city of the Cyrenaeans, fearing the death prophesied and supposing the tidal place to be Cyrene.

4Now he had a wife who was a relation of his, a daughter of Alazir king of the Barcaeans, and Arcesilaus went to Alazir; but men of Barce and some of the exiles from Cyrene were aware of him and killed him as he walked in the town, and Alazir his father-in-law too. So Arcesilaus whether with or without meaning to missed the meaning of the oracle and fulfilled his destiny.

Chapter 165

1While Arcesilaus was living at Barce, accomplishing his own destruction, his mother Pheretime held her son's prerogative at Cyrene, where she administered all his business and sat with others in council.

2But when she learned of her son's death at Barce, she made her escape to Egypt, trusting to the good service which Arcesilaus had done Cambyses the son of Cyrus; for this was the Arcesilaus who gave Cyrene to Cambyses and agreed to pay tribute.

3So, on her arrival in Egypt, Pheretime supplicated Aryandes, asking that he avenge her, on the plea that her son had been killed for allying himself with the Medes.

Chapter 166

1This Aryandes had been appointed viceroy of Egypt by Cambyses; at a later day, he was put to death for making himself equal to Darius. For, learning and seeing that Darius desired to leave a memorial of himself such as no king ever had, Aryandes imitated him, until he got his reward;

2for Darius had coined money out of gold refined to an extreme purity, and Aryandes, then ruling Egypt, made a similar silver coinage; and now there is no silver money so pure as is the Aryandic. But when Darius heard that Aryandes was doing so, he put him to death, not on this charge but as a rebel.

Chapter 167

1At this time, Aryandes took pity on Pheretime and gave her all the Egyptian land and sea forces, appointing Amasis, a Maraphian, general of the army, and Badres of the tribe of the Pasargadae, admiral of the fleet.

2But before despatching the troops, Aryandes sent a herald to Barce to ask who it was who had killed Arcesilaus. The Barcaeans answered that it was the deed of the whole city, for the many wrongs that Arcesilaus had done them; when he heard this, Aryandes sent his troops with Pheretime.

3This was the pretext; but I myself think that the troops were sent to subjugate Libya. For the Libyan tribes are many and of different kinds, and though a few of them were the king's subjects, the greater part cared nothing for Darius.

Chapter 168

1Now, concerning the lands inhabited by Libyans, the Adyrmachidae are the people that live nearest to Egypt; they follow Egyptian customs for the most part, but dress like other Libyans. Their women wear twisted bronze ornaments on both legs; their hair is long; each catches her own lice, then bites and throws them away.

2They are the only Libyans that do this, and who show the king all virgins that are to be married; the king then takes the virginity of whichever of these pleases him. These Adyrmachidae extend from Egypt to the harbor called Plynus.

Chapter 169

1Next to them are the Giligamae, who inhabit the country to the west as far as the island of Aphrodisias; in between lies the island of Platea, which the Cyrenaeans colonized, and on the mainland is the harbor called Menelaus, and the Aziris which was a settlement of the Cyrenaeans. Here the country of silphium begins,

2which reaches from the island of Platea to the entrance of the Syrtis. This people is like the others in its customs.

Chapter 170

1The next people west of the Giligamae are the Asbystae, who live inland of Cyrene, not coming down to the coast, for that is Cyrenaean territory. These drive four-horse chariots to a greater extent than any other Libyans; it is their practice to imitate most of the Cyrenaean customs.

Chapter 171

1Next west of the Asbystae are the Auschisae, dwelling inland of Barce, and touching the coast at Euhesperidae. About the middle of the land of the Auschisae lives the little tribe of the Bacales, whose territory comes down to the sea at Tauchira, a town in the Barcaean country; their customs are the same as those of the dwellers inland of Cyrene.

Chapter 172

1Next west of these Auschisae is the populous country of the Nasamones, who in summer leave their flocks by the sea and go up to the land called Augila to gather dates from the palm-trees that grow there in great abundance and all bear fruit. They hunt locusts, which they dry in the sun, and after grinding sprinkle them into milk and drink it.

2It is their custom for every man to have many wives; their intercourse with women is promiscuous, as among the Massagetae; a staff is placed before the dwelling, and then they have intercourse. When a man of the Nasamones weds, on the first night the bride must by custom lie with each of the whole company in turn; and each man after intercourse gives her whatever gift he has brought from his house.

3As for their manner of swearing and divination, they lay their hands on the graves of the men reputed to have been the most just and good among them, and by these men they swear; their practice of divination is to go to the tombs of their ancestors, where after making prayers they lie down to sleep, and take for oracles whatever dreams come to them.

4They give and receive pledges by each drinking from the hand of the other party; and if they have nothing liquid, they take the dust of the earth and lick it up.

Chapter 173

1On the borders of the Nasamones is the country of the Psylli, who perished in this way: the force of the south wind dried up their water-tanks, and all their country, lying in the region of the Syrtis, was waterless. After deliberating together, they marched south (I tell the story as it is told by the Libyans), and when they came into the sandy desert, a strong south wind buried them. So they perished utterly, and the Nasamones have their country.

Chapter 174

1Inland of these to the south, the Garamantes live in wild beast country. They shun the sight and fellowship of men, and have no weapons of war, nor know how to defend themselves.

Chapter 175

1These live inland of the Nasamones; the neighboring seaboard to the west is the country of the Macae, who shave their hair to a crest, leaving that on the top of their heads to grow and shaving clean off what is on either side; in war they carry shields made of ostrich skins.

2The Cinyps river empties into their sea through their country from a hill called the Hill of the Graces. This hill is thickly wooded, while the rest of Libya of which I have spoken is bare of trees; it is twenty-five miles from the sea.

Chapter 176

1Next to these Macae are the Gindanes, where every woman wears many leather anklets, because (so it is said) she puts on an anklet for every man with whom she has had intercourse; and she who wears the most is reputed to be the best, because she has been loved by the most men.

Chapter 177

1There is a headland jutting out into the sea from the land of the Gindanes; on it live the Lotus Eaters, whose only fare is the lotus. The lotus fruit is the size of a mastich-berry: it has a sweet taste like the fruit of a date-palm; the Lotus Eaters not only eat it, but make wine of it.

Chapter 178

1Next to these along the coast are the Machlyes, who also use the lotus, but less than the aforesaid people. Their country reaches to a great river called the Triton, which empties into the great Tritonian lake, in which is an island called Phla. It is said that the Lacedaemonians were told by an oracle to plant a settlement on this island.

Chapter 179

1The following story is also told: it is said that Jason, when the Argo had been built at the foot of Pelion, put aboard besides a hecatomb a bronze tripod, and set out to sail around the Peloponnese, to go to Delphi.

2But when he was off Malea, a north wind caught and carried him away to Libya; and before he saw land, he came into the shallows of the Tritonian lake. There, while he could find no way out yet, Triton (the story goes) appeared to him and told Jason to give him the tripod, promising to show the sailors the channel and send them on their way unharmed.

3Jason did, and Triton then showed them the channel out of the shallows and set the tripod in his own temple; but first he prophesied over it, declaring the whole matter to Jason's comrades: namely, that should any descendant of the Argo's crew take away the tripod, then a hundred Greek cities would be founded on the shores of the Tritonian lake. Hearing this (it is said) the Libyan people of the country hid the tripod.

Chapter 180

1Next to these Machlyes are the Auseans; these and the Machlyes, separated by the Triton, live on the shores of the Tritonian lake. The Machlyes wear their hair long behind, the Auseans in front.

2They celebrate a yearly festival of Athena, where their maidens are separated into two bands and fight each other with stones and sticks, thus (they say) honoring in the way of their ancestors that native goddess whom we call Athena. Maidens who die of their wounds are called false virgins.

3Before the girls are set fighting, the whole people choose the fairest maid, and arm her with a Corinthian helmet and Greek panoply, to be then mounted on a chariot and drawn all along the lake shore.

4With what armor they equipped their maidens before Greeks came to live near them, I cannot say; but I suppose the armor was Egyptian; for I maintain that the Greeks took their shield and helmet from Egypt.

5As for Athena, they say that she was daughter of Poseidon and the Tritonian lake, and that, being for some reason angry at her father, she gave herself to Zeus, who made her his own daughter. Such is their tale. The intercourse of men and women there is promiscuous; they do not cohabit but have intercourse like cattle.

6When a woman's child is well grown, the men assemble within three months and the child is adjudged to be that man's whom it is most like.

Chapter 181

1I have now described all the nomadic Libyans who live on the coast. Farther inland than these is that Libyan country which is haunted by wild beasts, and beyond this wild beasts' haunt runs a ridge of sand that stretches from Thebes of Egypt to the Pillars of Heracles.

2At intervals of about ten days' journey along this ridge there are masses of great lumps of salt in hills; on the top of every hill, a fountain of cold sweet water shoots up from the midst of the salt; men live around it who are farthest away toward the desert and inland from the wild beasts' country. The first on the journey from Thebes, ten days distant from there, are the Ammonians, who follow the worship of the Zeus of Thebes; for, as I have said before, the image of Zeus at Thebes has the head of a ram.

3They have another spring of water besides, which is warm at dawn, and colder at market-time, and very cold at noon;

4and it is then that they water their gardens; as the day declines, the coldness abates, until at sunset the water grows warm. It becomes ever hotter and hotter until midnight, and then it boils and bubbles; after midnight it becomes ever cooler until dawn. This spring is called the Spring of the Sun.

Chapter 182

1At a distance of ten days' journey again from the Ammonians along the sandy ridge, there is a hill of salt like that of the Ammonians, and springs of water, where men live; this place is called Augila; it is to this that the Nasamones come to gather palm-fruit.

Chapter 183

1After ten days' journey again from Augila there is yet another hill of salt and springs of water and many fruit-bearing palms, as at the other places; men live there called Garamantes, an exceedingly great nation, who sow in earth which they have laid on the salt.

2The shortest way to the Lotus Eaters' country is from here, thirty days' journey distant. Among the Garamantes are the cattle that go backward as they graze, the reason being that their horns curve forward;

3therefore, not being able to go forward, since the horns would stick in the ground, they walk backward grazing. Otherwise, they are like other cattle, except that their hide is thicker and harder to the touch.

4These Garamantes go in their four-horse chariots chasing the cave-dwelling Ethiopians: for the Ethiopian cave-dwellers are swifter of foot than any men of whom tales are brought to us. They live on snakes and lizards and such-like creeping things. Their speech is like no other in the world: it is like the squeaking of bats.

Chapter 184

1Another ten days' journey from the Garamantes there is again a salt hill and water, where men live called Atarantes. These are the only men whom we know who have no names; for the whole people are called Atarantes, but no man has a name of his own.

2When the sun is high, they curse and very foully revile him, because his burning heat afflicts their people and their land.

3After another ten days' journey there is again a hill of salt, and water, and men living there. Near to this salt is a mountain called Atlas, whose shape is slender and conical; and it is said to be so high that its heights cannot be seen, for clouds are always on them winter and summer. The people of the country call it the pillar of heaven.

4These men get their name, which is Atlantes, from this mountain. It is said that they eat no living creature, and see no dreams in their sleep.

Chapter 185

1I know and can tell the names of all the peoples that live on the ridge as far as the Atlantes, but no farther than that. But I know this, that the ridge reaches as far as the Pillars of Heracles and beyond them.

2There is a mine of salt on it every ten days' journey, and men live there. Their houses are all built of blocks of the salt; for these are parts of Libya where no rain falls; for the walls, being of salt, could not stand firm if there were rain.

3The salt there is both white and purple. Beyond this ridge, the southern and inland parts of Libya are desolate and waterless: there are no wild beasts, no rain, no forests; this region is wholly without moisture.

Chapter 186

1Thus from Egypt to the Tritonian lake, the Libyans are nomads that eat meat and drink milk; for the same reason as the Egyptians too profess, they will not touch the flesh of cows; and they rear no swine.

2The women of Cyrene, too, consider it wrong to eat cows' flesh, because of the Isis of Egypt; and they even honor her with fasts and festivals; and the Barcaean women refuse to eat swine too, as well as cows.

Chapter 187

1Thus it is with this region. But west of the Tritonian lake the Libyans are not nomads; they do not follow the same customs, or treat their children as the nomads do.

2For the practice of many Libyan nomads (I cannot say absolutely whether it is the practice of all) is to take their children when four years old, and to burn the veins of their scalps or sometimes of their temples with grease of sheep's wool, so that the children may never afterward be afflicted by phlegm draining from the head.

3They say that this makes their children quite healthy. In fact, the Libyans are the healthiest of all men whom we know; whether it is because of this practice, I cannot say absolutely; but they certainly are healthy. When the children smart from the pain of the burning, the Libyans have found a remedy; they soothe them by applications of goats' urine. This is what the Libyans themselves say.

Chapter 188

1The nomads' way of sacrificing is to cut a piece from the victim's ear for first-fruits and throw it over the house; then they wring the victim's neck. They sacrifice to no gods except the sun and moon; that is, this is the practice of the whole nation; but the dwellers by the Tritonian lake sacrifice to Athena chiefly, and next to Triton and Poseidon.

Chapter 189

1It would seem that the robe and aegis of the images of Athena were copied by the Greeks from the Libyan women; for except that Libyan women dress in leather, and that the tassels of their goatskin cloaks are not snakes but thongs of hide, in everything else their equipment is the same.

2And in fact, the very name betrays that the attire of the statues of Pallas has come from Libya; for Libyan women wear the hairless tasselled “aegea” over their dress, colored with madder, and the Greeks have changed the name of these aegeae into their “aegides.”

3Furthermore, in my opinion the ceremonial chant first originated in Libya: for the women of that country chant very tunefully. And it is from the Libyans that the Greeks have learned to drive four-horse chariots.

Chapter 190

1The dead are buried by the nomads in Greek fashion, except by the Nasamones. They bury their dead sitting, being careful to make the dying man sit when he releases his spirit, and not die lying supine. Their dwellings are constructed of asphodel stalks twined about reeds; they can be carried here and there. Such are the Libyan customs.

Chapter 191

1West of the Triton river and next to the Aseans begins the country of Libyans who cultivate the soil and possess houses; they are called Maxyes; they wear their hair long on the right side of their heads and shave the left, and they paint their bodies with vermilion.

2These claim descent from the men who came from Troy. Their country, and the rest of the western part of Libya, is much fuller of wild beasts and more wooded than the country of the nomads.

3For the eastern region of Libya, which the nomads inhabit, is low-lying and sandy as far as the Triton river; but the land west of this, where the farmers live, is exceedingly mountainous and wooded and full of wild beasts.

4In that country are the huge snakes and the lions, and the elephants and bears and asps, the horned asses, the dog-headed and the headless men that have their eyes in their chests, as the Libyans say, and the wild men and women, besides many other creatures not fabulous.

Chapter 192

1But in the nomads' country there are none of these; but there are others, white-rumped antelopes, gazelles, hartebeest, asses, not the horned asses, but those that are called “undrinking” (for indeed they never drink), the oryx, whose horns are made the horns of the lyre (this is a beast the size of a bull),

2foxes, hyenas, porcupines, wild rams, the dictys, jackals, panthers, the borys, land crocodiles sixty inches long, very like lizards, and ostriches and little one-horned serpents; all these beasts besides those that are elsewhere too, except deer and wild boar; of these two kinds there are none at all in Libya.

3There are in this country three kinds of mice, the two-footed, the “zegeries” (this is a Libyan word, meaning in our language “hills”), and the bristly-haired, as they are called. There are also weasels found in the silphium, very like to the weasels of Tartessus. So many are the wild creatures of the nomads' country, as far as by our utmost enquiry we have been able to learn.

Chapter 193

1Next to the Maxyes of Libya are the Zauekes, whose women drive their chariots to war.

Chapter 194

1Next to these are the Gyzantes, where much honey is made by bees, and much more yet (so it is said) by craftsmen. It is certain that they all paint themselves with vermilion and eat apes, with which their mountains swarm.

Chapter 195

1Off their coast (the Carthaginians say) lies an island called Cyrauis, twenty-five miles long and narrow across, accessible from the mainland; it is full of olives and vines.

2It is said that there is a lake on this island from which the maidens of the country draw gold-dust out of the mud on feathers smeared with pitch. I do not know whether this is true; I just write what is said. But all things are possible; for I myself saw pitch drawn from the water of a pool in Zacynthus.

3The pools there are numerous; the greatest of them is seventy feet long and broad, and twelve feet deep. Into this they drop a pole with a myrtle branch fastened to its end, and bring up pitch on the myrtle, smelling like asphalt, and for the rest better than the pitch of Pieria. Then they pour it into a pit that they have dug near the pool; and when a fair amount is collected there, they fill their vessels from the pit.

4Whatever falls into the pool is carried under the ground and appears again in the sea, which is about a half a mile distant from the pool. So, then, the story that comes from the island lying off the Libyan coast is like the truth, too.

Chapter 196

1Another story is told by the Carthaginians. There is a place in Libya, they say, where men live beyond the Pillars of Heracles; they come here and unload their cargo; then, having laid it in order along the beach, they go aboard their ships and light a smoking fire. The people of the country see the smoke, and, coming to the sea, they lay down gold to pay for the cargo, and withdraw from the wares.

2Then the Carthaginians disembark and examine the gold; if it seems to them a fair price for their cargo, they take it and go away; but if not, they go back aboard and wait, and the people come back and add more gold until the sailors are satisfied.

3In this transaction, it is said, neither party defrauds the other: the Carthaginians do not touch the gold until it equals the value of their cargo, nor do the people touch the cargo until the sailors have taken the gold.

Chapter 197

1These are all the Libyans whom we can name, and the majority of their kings cared nothing for the king of the Medes at the time of which I write, nor do they care for him now.

2I have this much further to say of this country: four nations and no more, as far as we know, inhabit it, two of which are aboriginal and two not; the Libyans in the north and the Ethiopians in the south of Libya are aboriginal; the Phoenicians and Greeks are later settlers.

Chapter 198

1In my opinion, there is in no part of Libya any great excellence for which it should be compared to Asia or Europe, except in the region which is called by the same name as its river, Cinyps.

2But this region is a match for the most fertile farmland in the world, nor is it at all like to the rest of Libya. For the soil is black and well-watered by springs, and has no fear of drought, nor is it harmed by drinking excessive showers (there is rain in this part of Libya). Its yield of grain is of the same measure as in the land of Babylon.

3The land inhabited by the Euhesperitae is also good; it yields at the most a hundredfold; but the land of the Cinyps region yields three hundredfold.

Chapter 199

1The country of Cyrene, which is the highest part of the Libya that the nomads inhabit, has the marvellous advantage of three harvest seasons. The fruits of the earth are ripe for reaping and picking on the coast first; when these have been gathered, the middle region above the coast, which they call the Hills, is ripe for gathering;

2and no sooner has this yield of the middle country been gathered than the highest-lying crops are mellow and ripe, so that the latest fruits of the earth are coming in when the earliest are already spent by way of food and drink. Thus the Cyrenaeans have a harvest lasting eight months. Enough of these matters, then.

Chapter 200

1Now when the Persians that Aryandes sent from Egypt to avenge Pheretime came to Barce, they laid siege to the city, demanding the surrender of those who were guilty of the murder of Arcesilaus: but the Barcaeans, whose whole people were accessory to the deed, would not yield.

2The Persians besieged Barce for nine months, digging underground passages leading to the walls, and making violent assaults. As for the tunnels, a blacksmith discovered them by the means of a bronze shield, and this is how he found them: carrying the shield around the inner side of the walls, he struck it against the ground of the city;

3all the other places which he struck returned a dull sound; but where there were tunnels, the bronze of the shield rang clear. Here the Barcaeans made a counter-tunnel and killed those Persians who were digging underground. Thus the tunnels were discovered, and the assaults were repelled by the townsfolk.

Chapter 201

1When much time had been spent and many on both sides (not less of the Persians than of their enemies) slain, Amasis the general of the foot soldiers devised a plot, knowing that Barce could not be taken by force but might be taken by guile: he dug by night a wide trench and laid frail planks across it, which he then covered over with a layer of earth level with the ground about it.

2Then when day came, he invited the Barcaeans to confer with him, and they readily consented; at last all agreed to conditions of peace. This was done thus: standing on the hidden trench, they gave and accepted a sworn assurance that their treaty would hold good while the ground where they stood was unchanged; the Barcaeans promised to pay a due sum to the king, and the Persians to do the Barcaeans no harm.

3When the sworn agreement was made, the townsfolk, trusting in it and opening all their gates, themselves came out of the city, and let all their enemies who so desired enter within the walls. But the Persians broke down the hidden bridge and ran into the city. They broke down the bridge that they had made, so that they might keep the oath which they had sworn to the Barcaeans: namely, that this treaty would hold good for as long as the ground remained as it was; but if they broke the bridge the treaty held good no longer.

Chapter 202

1When they were delivered to her by the Persians, Pheretime took the most guilty of the Barcaeans and set them impaled around the top of the wall; the breasts of their women she cut off and planted around the wall in like manner.

2As for the rest of the Barcaeans, she told the Persians to take them as their booty, except those who were of the house of Battus and not accessory to the murder: to these she turned over the city.

Chapter 203

1The Persians thus enslaved the rest of the Barcaeans, and went home. When they appeared before the city of Cyrene, the Cyrenaeans let them pass through their city, so that a certain oracle might be fulfilled.

2As the army was passing through, Badres the admiral of the fleet was for taking the city, but Amasis the general of the land army would not consent, saying that he had been sent against Barce and no other Greek city; at last they passed through Cyrene and camped on the hill of Lycaean Zeus; there they regretted not having taken the city, and tried to enter it again, but the Cyrenaeans would not let them.

3Then, although no one attacked them, panic seized the Persians, and they fled to a place seven miles distant and camped there; and while they were there, a messenger from Aryandes came to the camp asking them to return. The Persians asked and received from the Cyrenaeans provisions for their march, after which they left to go to Egypt;

4but then they fell into the hands of the Libyans, who killed the laggards and stragglers of the army for the sake of their garments and possessions; until at last they came to Egypt.

Chapter 204

1This Persian force advanced as far as Euhesperidae in Libya and no farther. As for the Barcaeans whom they had taken for slaves, they carried them from Egypt into banishment and brought them to the king, and Darius gave them a town of Bactria to live in. They gave this town the name Barce, and it remained an inhabited place in Bactria until my own lifetime.

Chapter 205

1But Pheretime did not end well, either. For as soon as she had revenged herself on the Barcaeans and returned to Egypt, she met an awful death. For while still alive she teemed with maggots: thus does over-brutal human revenge invite retribution from the gods. That of Pheretime, daughter of Battus, against the Barcaeans was revenge of this nature and this brutality.